The European fishing industry said on Wednesday 17 December that it was very disappointed by the partial agreement on the sharing of mackerel stocks reached between the United Kingdom, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland, which effectively excludes the EU.
“By opting for a total catch limit of 299,010 tonnes for 2026, there is now a formal disruption of the level playing field, with the EU following the ICES headline advice”, explain the European Association of Fish Producer Organisations (EAPO) and Europêche.
They call on the EU to mobilise all means at its disposal to correct this imbalance, combat overfishing that is now institutionalised and help to conclude an equitable agreement between all coastal states.
According to the organisations, this agreement (https://aeur.eu/f/k2e ) “rewards the unilateral setting of excessive and inflated quotas by non-EU countries in recent years, while disregarding [...] the legitimate interests of the EU and its fishers”.
The combined share of the four signatories now stands at 79.45% of the authorised total, leaving insufficient margin to take account of the EU’s demands. The agreement excludes not only the European Union, but also Greenland, without providing a solution to Russian overfishing. Norway has been allocated a TAC of 78,939 tonnes.
The European regulation on 2026 quotas provides for a provisional TAC of 156,921 tonnes, corresponding to 90% of the main scientific advice from ICES, applicable for the first six months of 2026. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)