Responding to Michel Barnier’s comments a few days ago that no progress has been made on fisheries issues in the withdrawal negotiations, the NFFO states that this is hardly a surprise considering the vast gulf between the two sides’ positions.
‘The EU’s negotiating mandate is to retain the status quo on access rights and quota shares – and to hold the UK as close as possible to the provisions of the Common Fisheries Policy. As the current arrangements under the CFP are asymmetric, there is zero prospect of UK agreement to the status quo,’ an NFFO spokesman commented.
‘After two days of talks the major issues remain unresolved. There can probably be high-level agreement on a commitment to the principles of fishing sustainably and using science to inform management decisions, but unless there is movement on the EU side on the other issues, it is unlikely that an agreement will be reached in June, or even later this year.’
According to the NFFO, the EU’s nuclear option of withholding a free trade agreement unless the UK caves in on fisheries would hurt the UK, while also inflicting extensive collateral damage on the EU member states – at the same time handing the UK what it wants on fisheries.
The EU has already published a draft legal text, reflecting something close to the status quo that it would like to use as the basis for negotiations. The UK has not submitted a legal text but has made clear its objectives.
These include an agreement which leaves intact the UK’s sovereignty to act as an independent coastal state, providing regulatory autonomy over the fisheries within its exclusive economic zone like any other coastal state, co-operation on the management of shared stocks, annual fisheries agreements as the principal vehicle for managing shared stocks, quota shares that more closely reflect a scientific assessment of the resources located in UK waters, mutual access for EU and UK waters where this is mutually beneficial, and an exclusive 12-mile zone.
‘If this list looks familiar, it may be because it is pretty close to the EU’s current fisheries agreement with Norway. Two more rounds of negotiations are anticipated on 11th May and 1st June. At that point progress will be assessed across all the UK/EU negotiations and a judgement will be taken on whether to carry on,’ the NFFO’s spokesman commented.
‘At present, the EU negotiating mandate does not allow for any flexibility, and so it looks like a no-deal is the most likely outcome. On fisheries, the UK will then prepare to enter the cycle of autumn negotiate with Norway, the EU, and the other countries with which it shares stocks, in the absence of a UK-EU framework fisheries agreement. This is not ideal, but it is better than the alternative: agreement to terms that would tie the UK back into a CFP-type arrangement. That would be politically unsellable in the UK.’
