As per the information available the annual round of international negotiations is about to begin and this will set the UK industry catching opportunity for 2010, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations will tell UK fisheries ministers that they must harden their opposition to the cuts – otherwise some sectors of the fishing fleet will be destroyed.
Speaking ahead of the joint meeting, NFFO Chief Executive Barrie Deas says that the reductions in days at sea under the new plan for cod will do serious and lasting damage to the fleet. He added that the headline days-at-sea reductions which we face next year and thereafter do not amount to a coherent plan for continuing the recovery of cod while allowing the whitefish industry to survive.
It is informed that EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg underlined to Scottish Fisheries Minister Richard Lochhead that the EC had no intention of revising the cod management plan agreed in 2008, and which has built-in year-on-year cuts. Bertie Armstrong, SFF Chief Executive, told that the plan will deliver cuts in days at sea of 13% in the North Sea and 25% in the West of Scotland. A recent Scottish Government Economic report shows that this will kill viability in some sectors of the fleet.
The Federations feel strongly that the continuing flawed approach is unacceptable and that the only real potential for change is through a dramatic increase in political pressure. The two Federations have issued warning that they are staring at economic casualties in the short term. Ministers must engage now with Europe in a much more direct and decisive way, or there will be sectors of the industry – and their associated communities – that simply will not survive.
