The delayed third round of EU-UK trade negotiations has just started this week, taking place virtually due to the ongoing pandemic. Since March, there has been no tangible progress on crucial issues, fisheries included. The UK insists on a separate free trade agreement, while the EU chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, stressed that the EU would not agree to any economic agreement that does not include balanced, sustainable and long-term fisheries. Only one month remains before a potential high-level decision on the continuation (or not) of the talks in June.
Fisheries, a relatively small sector, is very prominent because it was made totemic by Brexiteers for taking back control and defending British fish from the nets of EU fishers. However, fish know no borders and their freedom of movement cannot be curtailed. EU and UK fisheries are interdependent; Europeans seek access to British fishing grounds, while British fishers need European markets to export their seafood. Furthermore, UK small-scale fishers want equity at home, a more fair and sustainable national quota allocation (always entirely within the UK´s competence, the EU has no power here), and not the current concentration of fishing rights in the hands of domestic Codfather clans.
The clock is ticking. The EU and the UK should reach a deal on fisheries by 1 July if they are to live up to the best endeavours they wrote into the Political Declaration in October 2019. Prime minister Boris Johnson also self-imposed a tight timeline and no prolongation of the transition period, gambling with the possibility of a no-deal scenario on 31 December 2020 with its full economic consequences.
The deadlock is most concerning for the fishers on both sides of the Channel, for they will suffer direct consequences of a no-deal, and fish populations are increasingly at risk of an overfishing race to the bottom. Oceana urges both parties to prioritize science-based management, by legally committing to maximum sustainable yield as the limit for exploitation.
The EU and the UK can still turn this particular winter of our discontent into a glorious summer, as Richard III would say. Facing a dramatically short time window and working to the rhythm marked by Coronavirus, the EU and the UK must choose which approach they will take to the negotiation game: cooperation or defection.
euronews 2020