Brussels, 14/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Union is to implement “without delay” measures to prevent Icelandic fishermen from landing mackerel in EU ports, the European Commission announced on Friday 14 January. This is, in fact, a retaliatory measure already announced against Iceland which awarded itself very large mackerel quotas for 2010 and 2011, without consulting its international partners, such as the EU and Norway.
An extraordinary meeting of the European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Committee was convened on Friday to inform the EU's partners EEA and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) partners of possible measures that the EU may decide to implement in order to prohibit the landing of Icelandic mackerel in EU ports. The EEA is made up of the 27 EU member states, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
The EEA Agreement, allows any of the Contracting Parties “to refuse landings of fish stocks of common interest over the management of which there is serious disagreement”, the Commission says. Traditionally, mackerel stocks were managed jointly by the EU and Norway, but Icelandic fishermen developed this fishery very rapidly and in an unrestricted manner in 2008 and 2009. European fisheries ministers welcomed the announcement by European Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki in December that she would seek such a ban. The EU is of the view that the quotas taken unilaterally by Iceland are too high. Iceland, which has applied to join the EU, decided without consultation to increase its mackerel quota to 130,000 tonnes in 2010. Several consultation meetings took place in 2010 to try to find an agreement, but to no avail. At the last meeting, on 26 November, Iceland walked out of the talks, announcing that it had unilaterally set a quota of 146,000 tonnes for 2011. (L.C./transl.rt)