Why the UK and the EU are fighting for fish

After nine months, Britain’s trade talks with the European Union have been limited to the rights of EU fishing vessels to catch in British waters. Both sides want to keep fish crossing borders and avoid collisions between vessels at sea, and the EU wants to maintain access to the waters vital to its commercial fishing industries for years to come.

“In the field of fisheries, the discussion is still very difficult,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament. “In all honesty, sometimes we feel we can’t solve this question.”

While a member of the EU, the United Kingdom had to share its waters as part of the common fisheries policy. But the British have long said that this has unfairly restricted their own industry. The EU did not question Britain’s right to control its seas, but insisted that in exchange for a trade agreement and access to the bloc’s single market, it should continue to grant ships from countries such as France, the Netherlands and Belgium a large part of the catch.

Common water

Home of the vessel with the highest fishing intensity in 2016

The talks focused on what is called the Exclusive Economic Zone, the sea between 12 and 200 nautical miles off the British coast. A section between 6 and 12 miles was also part of the discussion, as European ships, especially those from France, had access there for centuries, although it did not officially fall under EU jurisdiction.

Read more: Fish are chips in post-Brexit trade negotiations

There are some precedents for non-EU countries that have concluded agreements with the fisheries sector. The EU has bilateral agreements with Norway and the Faroe Islands, for example, to jointly manage fish stocks and allow European fishermen to work in their waters.

Norway reached a bilateral framework agreement on fisheries cooperation with the United Kingdom in September. The country, which has a free trade agreement with the EU as part of its accession to the European Economic Area, has said it can shut down its European Union and UK fishing vessels on 1 January if a three-party agreement is not reached. until the end of the month.

The EU’s common fisheries policy, which sets catch limits for each country, has been set to address the sharp decline in fishing stocks in the world’s fourth largest fishing producing area and the highest value in the world.

EU fisheries ministers set annual limits, known as total allowable catches, for each species in negotiations that often last overnight. The idea is for each country to receive a fixed quota over a long period of time. Catch limits are reviewed annually and can be traded.

Note: Catch limits for zones IVa, IVb, IVc. Share of catches based on available data.

The UK wanted to change the way fish stocks were calculated to use a formula called “zonal attachment”, which the government said gave a much more accurate picture of where the fish were, rather than the model. The EU relied on data from the 1970s. The EU opposed Britain’s efforts to make access and the number of quotas dependent on annual negotiations, as it claimed that this would affect the stability of European industry.

According to officials close to the negotiations, the UK on Friday rejected an EU offer that would allow the bloc to lose around 25% of the current 650 million euros ($ 795 million) of fish caught annually in British waters. The UK is pushing the reduction to be closer to 60%, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

To put this in context, negotiations are stalled on fishing rights equivalent to around 0.1% of the UK ‘s gross domestic product. The British government’s own analysis in 2018 suggested that the economy will be at least 2.6% smaller in 15 years if there is no trade agreement.

.Source

Common water

Catch limits

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