Following the publication of an analysis for the European Parliament on the Trade and economic related issues of the CFP & Brexit, a French-British trio (Bertrand Le Gallic, Simon Mardle and Sébastien Metz) was invited to write an article in a special edition of EuroChoices.
]]>The UK fishing sector has been under the spotlight since the beginning of the Brexit debate. Political commentators claimed that up to 90 per cent of British fishers supported Brexit as they considered the UK was disadvantaged compared to other EU Member States. Their main grudge is about the equal access that all Member States have had to all EU waters – with the exception of territorial waters, up to 12 nautical miles from the coast – since the formal inception of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 1983. Combined with what they perceive to be an unbalanced allocation of fishing quotas, this legal framework is thought by the UK fishing industry to be the main reason for the poor management of EU fisheries, which could be terminated following Brexit thus regaining the UK's status as an independent coastal state. The key issue addressed in this article is the possible reallocation of fishing opportunities within British waters. It outlines the current allocation system and summarises the views of major stakeholders. This is complex as historical fishing rights may or may not be acknowledged but it remains that the UK fishing industry needs access to EU markets and EU labour to bring the fish to value.
The PECH Committee of the European Pariament commissioned a three-part study in 2017, focusing on three main subjects:
The report is available on the European Parliament website. The original report is in English and has been translated in French, Spanish and German
]]>Try "Brexit Fisheries" in your favourite search engine (we're using Starpage or Qwant), what can you see? Try the same experiment on Twitter, is it better?... Four years after the Brexit referendum, the scarcity of information on the "fish" dimension of the Brexit process is striking.
Inflammatory statements, red lines, threats... are commonly relayed by the media, while balanced analyses seldom make the top stories. Because Brexit is not only a political or economic issue for the fisheries sector (you could argue about the economic importance of the sector in the wider British economy, that's another debate), it is also an emotional issue. Some say the fisheries side of the Brexit debate has changed the face of the referendum, although we would love to see some hard figures on that.
From our perspective, the lack of accessible information is a shame: part of the debate (and potentially the negotiation) is blured by a lack of understanding of what is at stake, not only on the water but also after the fish has left the quayside. Several research groups have worked on both sides of the English Channel/North Sea on identifying and quantifying the various consequences of Brexit on the seafood sector in the UK and in the EU, but most of this information is only known by specialists and is sometimes not easy to find.
So we decided to build our own website, in order to try to report as objectively as possible factual elements that could help understand positions on both sides of the negotiation table. True objectivity isn't something real, but we'll try to do our best to report arguments from both sides without judgment or prejudice. We are not intending to be exhaustive (why would people hire us for our day jobs if everything was here?), but we're aiming at highlighting the key elements. If you think we miss some, don't hesitate to contact us (at contact at brexit.fish).
So the usual disclaimer: this website is mainly a night project, run by a French fisheries consultant. You can find more information about him here and about his company there. You can also follow us on twitter @BrexitSeafood.
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