A conflict over the interpretation of a 1994 mackerel agreement has caused a breakdown in the talks between the European Union and Norway on the 2010 TACs.
Reporting on the breakdown, the European Voice news organisation said a new agreement is now unlikely until next year.
The EU Commission declined to comment on the halted negotiations, but Norwegian officials said that the mackerel issue was the main reason behind it. The EU stopped Norwegian vessels from catching migrating mackerel in Union waters earlier this year, despite a 1994 agreement the Norwegians claim justified their venture. The Commission disclaimed that notion, generally suggesting that Norway, its fishing industry only second to oil as the dominating source of income in the nation’s economy, was trying to unjustly increase its fisheries in EU waters.
It is no secret that particularly Scottish fishermen have been pressing hard for a better deal, suggesting that their mackerel fisheries have already been hampered by what they see as infringements from Icelandic colleagues.
The mackerel issue was not the only point where EU and Norway – this second round of negotiations started in Brussels on November 30 – failed to reach agreement, according to the European Voice.
Norway, which already has a discard ban, felt that EU did not address that problem, and the talks also failed to reach agreement on quotas for cod, haddock, herring and plaice in the North Sea and the Skagerrak.
The Norwegian Fisheries Minister Lisbeth Berg-Hansen, describing the EU attitude as “hostile”, said she was “very disappointed by the EU’s lack of will to seek a mutually acceptable agreement for 2010”. She claimed that Norway, on its part, was acting responsibly and used scientific criteria for deciding on fishing quotas in Norwegian waters.
The Commission later published a press release, saying that it “deeply regrets that, despite all the efforts made to reach agreement with Norway, the respective approaches of the two Parties at this stage have proved to be irreconcilable”.