UK and EU agree new £333 million fishing deal

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The EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) that was signed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the EU on Christmas Eve allows the EU to keep 75 percent of the value of the fish it now catches in UK waters, with 25 percent being returned to British fishermen over the transition period. However, an EU member state-flagged vessel has no right to fish in UK waters until a licence is issued under the new rules. Once the licence is obtained, the vessel can sail and engage in fishing activities in British waters.

A French fisherman from Boulogne-sur-Mer, a coastal city in Northern France, has apparently been waiting three weeks for the license.

Jérémy Lhomel believes Brexit is the straw that broke the camel’s back, as he blamed the EU for overfishing and having to depend so much on UK waters.

He told Ouest France: “If there were enough resources in our waters, we would not be so dependent on those of the English. The sea here is overexploited.”

It is no secret that Europe is far from reaching its marine sustainability and biodiversity goals.

Despite the aims of the recently reformed EU Common Fisheries Policy and commitments made by the European Commission, overfishing, habitat destruction and excessive discarding of unwanted catches are still ongoing problems.

A report from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations found that 75 percent of Mediterranean and Black Sea fish stocks are overfished.

Earlier this year, the bloc was even accused of “hypocrisy and neocolonialism” for proposing insufficient measures to tackle overfishing of yellowfin tuna, while being the largest fisher of the highly prized species in the Indian Ocean.

The yellowfin tuna is one of the ocean’s fastest and strongest predators.

Also called ahi tuna, this species is overfished in the Indian Ocean – so much so that supermarkets and brands including Tesco, Co-op and Princes took the surprising step of joining scientists and environmental groups to call for tough action to rebuild the $4billion (£2.9bn) population.

However, although the Indian Ocean is bordered by Africa, Asia and Australia, the single biggest harvester of yellowfin in the area is the EU.

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Member states – principally Spain and France – operate a “distant water fleet” of 43 vessels that fish the seas thousands of miles from home, according to The Guardian.

In 2019 they caught 70,000 tonnes of yellowfin, more than Indian Ocean coastal states such as Iran (58,000 tonnes), Sri Lanka and the Maldives (44,000 tonnes each).

In March, a former Seychelles fishery official accused the EU of “hypocrisy and neocolonialism”, while the Maldives described the EU’s proposals to rebuild yellowfin populations as “woefully inadequate”.

These issues came in the buildup to a“crucial” emergency meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), the regulatory body in charge of managing tuna stocks.

Both the EU and the Maldives, out of 33 parties involved, made proposals to the IOTC to reduce overfishing and rebuild populations.

It is the much poorer and smaller Maldives, however, that proposed the toughest reductions while the EU called for a much less dramatic cut.

Adam Ziyad, director general of the Maldives fisheries ministry and vice-chair of the IOTC said: “This is a ‘band-aid’ measure from the EU.

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“It is nowhere near the required reduction levels to ensure we conserve the yellowfin stocks for our future generations.

“If they were serious, they would take a bigger hit and they would work with coastal states to have a better management plan.”

Nirmal Shah, former chair of Seychelles Fishing Authority and now the chief executive of Nature Seychelles, described the EU proposal as a “delaying tactic”.

He added: “The EU is hypocritical, going around the world talking about overfishing. It’s a neocolonial situation.

“What the EU are telling us is they don’t care about our coastal nations.”

Jess Rattle, of the Blue Marine Foundation, accused the EU of being the “biggest contributor” to yellowfin tuna overfishing because of its dominance and use of FADs.

She said: “Unsurprisingly, the EU has put forward a yellowfin proposal that is woefully insufficient, would not lead to the timely recovery of the stock and could in fact allow the EU fleet to increase its own catches, compared to 2019.”

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