A deal worth 800 million euros in danger to be sunk by Brexit
Fishing in the UK waters is an important business for the owners of the vessels from France, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Denmark and the Brexit is seen as a threat to their operations.
These countries are the ones that extract the highest value of seafood from the UK extensive economic zone (EEZ), ahead of Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. In total, the value of the seafood fished in 2016 by the EU vessels exceeded 780 million euros. In contrast, the UK’s catch in common EU waters was only EUR 123 million.
On average, 30% to 40% of (shell)fish landings of these eight nations come from the UK EEZ. Belgium and the Netherlands have the highest dependency rates on fishing in British waters (see Figure 2). In 2015, the total value of the Dutch fishermen’s catch from the UK fishing grounds accounted for 39% of the total Dutch landings – by volume it amounts to up to 60%. For Belgian fishermen, the dependency ratio on the UK EEZ exceeds 50%, informs a Rabobank report released at the beginning of this month.
Mackerel and herring are the fish that keeps high the landings of EU fishing vessels. None of this fish is in demand on the British market.
Still, a hard-Brexit could lead to a situation where London will denounce the Common Fisheries Policy and establishes its own quota.
Allocation of all fishing quotas in the UK’s extensive economic zone (EEZ) to British fishing vessels could lead to the full exclusion of foreign vessels from British waters. It could also lead to an expansion of the national fleet for the UK, along with new investments in the processing industry, allowing for increased capacity to process the extra catch.
"Under a scenario that the UK government allocates all quotas to UK fishing vessels, we assume that UK landings would increase up to 50% to 60% in value terms while the landings of the remaining EU member states that fish in UK waters would decrease by 20% to 30% in value terms", predicts the Rabobank report.
A change in the fish trade between UK and EU would be felt not only by not only be felt by the EU fishing fleet, but also by the coastal population, seafood processors, and traders in other member states as Great Britain exports 70% of the seafood to the EU's single market.
However, this situation could open up new opportunities for non-EU countries to trade with both the UK and the EU, concluded the report.
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