A deal which allows Faroese boats to catch a third of their mackerel quota in EU waters, while Scottish boats catch none round the Faroe Islands, must be renegotiated urgently, it is claimed.
New research shows the Faroese are catching more than agreed and Scottish fishermen who work in the pelagic sector (herring, mackerel and blue whiting), say local boats are losing out to their Faroese counterparts.
In a joint statement ahead of crunch EU-Faroe talks in Copenhagen next week, the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association and the Shetland Fishermen’s Association are pressing for a new balance to be struck.
The bilateral deal, agreed in 2014, had been designed to allow Faroese vessels to catch a proportion of their mackerel and blue whiting quota in EU waters and UK boats to catch some of their quota for these species in Faroese waters.
However, according to the fishermen an independent study carried out by the UK Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) has shown that Faroe had overshot its mackerel access entitlement by 1,400 tonnes from EU waters last year, while UK boats caught no mackerel or blue whiting at all in Faroese waters.
Ian Gatt, chief executive of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association, said: “The deal with Faroe has some positive elements, principally giving a small number of Scottish whitefish boats access to Faroese quota.
“But on the pelagic side the Faroese have been given an inch and taken a mile, even over-shooting their permitted quota. This deal is having a real negative impact on the pelagic processing sector. As Faroe can catch high quality mackerel from our waters they can now access our hard fought for markets."
He said this showed a fundamental imbalance which needed to be addressed.
Simon Collins, executive officer of the Shetland Fishermen’s Association, agreed: “It cannot be beyond the wit of EU negotiators to obtain a fairer deal on mackerel fisheries without endangering EU access to Faroese waters for other stocks.
“Current access arrangements are so skewed in favour of Faroe that it is hard to imagine how the EU got to this situation in the first place.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said:
“The 2014 mackerel agreement returned this stock towards sustainable management practices after years of dispute and overfishing. This agreement then triggered the separate EU/Faroe agreement which delivers wider benefits across the Scottish fleet, in particular access to significant whitefish opportunities in Faroese waters worth around £2 million per year. In return, Faroese vessels are permitted to catch 30 per cent of their mackerel quota in EU waters - almost a third less than in 2010 when the agreement was last active. "
She said he Scottish Government was working with all relevant parties to ensure that any deal at the forthcoming talks would be fair for all Scotland's fishermen.
In 2013 the European Union banned Faroese herring imports and prohibited their fishing vessels entry into European ports for pulling out of international sharing arrangements for Atlantic herring.
A deal was done the following year which agreed 40,000-tonne of herring limit for Faroe boats that year, which again angered Scottish fishermen.
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