It is expected that the EU Fish Council would cut 15 percent for the Scots whitefish fleet. The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation will be arguing strongly that the cut is unjustified and should be reversed. There would cuts for prawns (Nephrops) – a mainstay species for the Scottish fleet – of 8 percent cut for the North Sea and 15 percent on the West coast of Scotland. West coast haddock and cod are facing large cuts, but for whiting and herring in the North Sea a 15 percent and 21 percent increase respectively has been agreed.
North Sea haddock faces a 5 percent cut with cod being reduced by 20 percent. There will be the provision for fishermen to catch extra cod equal to 12 percent of the reduced TAC (total allowable catch) if they participate in the trial ‘catch quota’ scheme, where boats land all the cod they catch.
The agreement between EU and Norway saw an expansion of this catch quota scheme for cod in the North Sea to enable more Scottish fishermen to participate. Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said that once the Fish Council has concluded this Tuesday, the onus will be on both fishermen and the Scottish Government to try and find ways to tailor the regulations to meet the complex environment of mixed fisheries that the fishing fleet operates in. He said that such quotas to provide real and much wider benefit, there needs to be an adjustment in the management regulations so as to take into account the fishing environment that boats work in.
