Norway and the EU fi nally reached an agreement on mackerel quotas and the management regime for North Atlantic mackerel in early December 2010, after long and hard negotiations, which in some quarters were dubbed “the mackerel war”.
The “mackerel war” refers to the refusal by Iceland to continue negotiations with Norway and the EU and accept a lower quota, after unilaterally setting its own quota for 2010 at 130 000 tonnes. In retaliation, Norway banned landings of mackerel from Icelandic vessels in Norwegian ports, while the EU threatened to do the same. The EU and Norway felt that Iceland, which did not fish mackerel until recent years, should not have a greater quota because of its history of non-participation in this fishery. However, in recent years, mackerel has started moving further to the north and west, thus entering Icelandic waters, prompting Iceland to claim a larger share of the quota.
The mackerel quotas for 2011 will amount to 583 882 tonnes, of which 183 069 tonnes were allocated to Norway, and 400 813 tonnes to the EU. As under the previous agreement, both parties will be allowed to take a larger part of their quotas in each other’s EEZs. Horse mackerel quotas remained at the same level as in 2010 at 181 000 tonnes.
Iceland and the Faroe Islands have been selling lower quality mackerel to mainly east European markets, and at lower prices. This has put pressure on prices in these markets, and Norway registered a slight decline (-1.5%) in average export prices during 2010. However, price reductions were strongest on east European markets such as Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and Poland. Prices on the most important market, Japan, actually showed a 6.2% increase compared with 2009.
