The European Commission has made it a priority objective to ensure, after Brexit, a secure relationship with the United Kingdom and sustainable management of the 100 shared fish stocks, said Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella in Brussels on Friday 5 April.
He welcomed the progress that had been made towards achieving sustainable management of fish stocks in Atlantic waters and expressed the view that this valuable heritage should be conserved and consolidated.
The Commissioner said he would prefer an orderly exit from the EU from the United Kingdom, as this would bring certainty until the new agreement negotiated on the new relationship between the EU and the United Kingdom.
But the EU is ready for the exit without agreement, which would mean that EU vessels would have to leave British waters (and vice versa, the departure of the British fleet from EU waters). However, this would have “negative economic consequences” for the fleets of the eight countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands) that are most dependent on fish catches in British waters, the European Commissioner recalled.
First of all, the Commission is in dialogue with these eight countries to ensure a “coordinated management” of their fleets leaving British waters, to avoid not only fishing pressure in other areas, but also conflicts in the waters, said Karmenu Vella.
For the rest, he recalled the two types of emergency measures recently adopted in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
The first is an amendment to the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) Regulation to provide public support for the temporary cessation of fishing activities to fishermen and operators who are heavily dependent on access to UK waters and who are affected by a closure of UK waters.
The second proposal amends the Regulation on the sustainable management of external fishing fleets. Objective: to ensure that the Union is able to grant access to EU waters for United Kingdom vessels until the end of 2019, provided that EU-27 vessels also enjoy reciprocal access to British waters.
Withdrawal agreement. The Brexit pre-agreement confirms that, until there is a trade agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom, fisheries will remain excluded from the scope of the customs union. The United Kingdom will regain control of its waters after Brexit and a fisheries agreement and quotas for each fish species will have to be negotiated by July 2020. The withdrawal agreement contains nothing on these future fisheries relations, except for provisions on the transitional period until the end of 2020. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)