Tension mounts in France and European fishing countries ahead of the Brexit vote.

The tension and vagueness around Brexit could make Europeans lose access to the rich British waters. Europe is preparing for the showdown but appears in a weak position. Soon a movement of "yellow nets"? We are not there yet. But the situation could quickly be tense for the French fishermen so much, like their counterparts of Northern Europe, they approach 2019 caught in the trap of Brexit, in which they have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

The stakes are in fact enormous, if not vital: they must preserve the precious access to the British territorial waters, rich in fish and of which they are strongly dependent. According to an April 2017 study by the Framian cabinet for the EU's European Fisheries Alliance (EUFA), the continent's fishermen catch an average of 42% of their catches. The Belgian, Dutch and Swedish fleets are particularly concerned, but the phenomenon is also marked for the French fleet, with 36% taken in British waters, according to the study.

Black scenario

However, in case of "hard Brexit", with an exit from the EU without a transitional agreement, the United Kingdom would leave, as of March 30, the Community fishing policy ... and the free movement of boats that goes with. Technically, London could thus decide at any time, unilaterally, to close access to its territorial waters, the 200-mile strip that surrounds its coasts! This black scenario would be a bomb that could, according to the formula of a European diplomat, "blow up the economy of the sector". According to the EUFA, it would result in the loss of 6,000 jobs out of 18,000 in the European fleets, not to mention the impact on the rest of the sea industry chain.

The promise of Brexiters

This risk is far from negligible. The British Parliament is due to discuss this week's draft agreement for a soft Brexit and everything leaves to worry that he will reject it, which will plunge the country into a new crisis and increase the risk of a "no deal". And the British fishermen are waiting at the turn: in the referendum of 2016, they voted overwhelmingly in favour of the "Leave", warmed by the Brexitiers promising them a golden aftermath by the resumption of control of territorial waters.

A total and immediate closing of the waters seems however unrealistic. Minister in charge, Michael Gove, even told Parliament in late 2017 that, whatever happens, the United Kingdom would apply until the end of 2019 the European system of mutual access to water and fishing quotas. Still, the promise is binding only on those who believe in it, that it comes from a government threatened to leap and that London, whether in a few weeks or months, has a clear plan in mind: access to its ocean resources, on a case-by-case basis with the states to establish its advantage in the negotiations and "rebalancing", according to the Brexitiers' term, the fishing quotas for the British.

The question is all the more delicate for Europeans that it will arise even in case of "soft Brexit". The exit agreement ordered on the table does not provide any lasting guarantee for fishermen. Admittedly, during the transition period, until the end of 2020, it would guarantee a simple and controlled situation: the current system of free access and fishing quotas, negotiated each year in Brussels, would remain in force. But the pack will hurt afterwards. For good reason, products from the sea are not included in the "single customs territory", the system of "relief" planned to organize the exchange of goods from 2021 if no other agreement is found by then on the future trade relationship between the EU and the UK. In other words, sooner or later, the fate of the fishermen will have to be negotiated anyway.

Macron on the front line

The European Union is preparing for it. Of course, the first reflex is to brand the threat of equivalent retaliation. But the balance of power here is unfavourable: British fishermen are less dependent on inland waters, where they catch only 20% of their catches. The idea in vogue in Brussels is therefore to play on the main asset in the round of 27: the access of British fishermen to the European market, where they sell more than three quarters of their catch. "The idea is 'you can continue to sell at home if you can continue fishing at home'," summarise European diplomats.

Milestones were laid at the European summit on November 25, where the 27 validated the draft agreement of "soft Brexit". At the request of France and the Netherlands in particular, European leaders emphasise a declaration annexed to the conclusions of the summit that an agreement with the United Kingdom should be concluded on fisheries "well before the end of the transitional period" and "be based, inter alia, on the principles of reciprocal access and existing quotas ".

Sea ​​against the sky - future of French fishing still in troubled waters

Brexit: the different possible scenarios ...

This bargaining lever, however, also has its limits. Even without an agreement with the EU, UK seafood would retain access to the EU market under WTO rules. They would then suffer customs duties, but these are framed at a level far from prohibitive. This is why Europeans are also careful to raise the threat of even stronger responses by linking the future of fishing to that of other sectors. Mid-July, Leo Varadkar, the Irish Prime Minister, set foot on the plate threatening to ban British planes flying over the Republic of Ireland: "You cannot have butter and buttery money . You can not take back your waters and hope to keep the sky of others! Everyone has placed their pawns, the naval battle can begin.

Full story courtesy of LesEchos.fr

Unskilled work? - a day in the life, Nereus INS172 prawn fishing in the North Sea.

Nereus INS172 fishing in the North Sea today.

It's not the worst weather to be at sea in - but it is near the limit that you can keep fishing safely. Added to the weather problems, skipper Terry Jack aboard the prawn trawler Nereus is finding his fishing business increasingly difficult to run as he struggles to get crew. Despite the excellent income that can be earned from fishing these days (down in Cornwall many young fishermen own their own homes with mortgages) what other career can do that for a young man in his 20s and 30s so easily these days?

The Fisheries Bill 2017-2019 is the first major piece of legislation for fishing in the UK for years...

and there is not a single mention of the word training in the bill, ignoring the current crisis in recruitment and the training of new entrants - despite the obvious problems the industry faces with regard to crewing in many areas.

Back at sea, good fishing for the day sees over thirty baskets of langoustine or 'prawns' come aboard which now need to be...

sorted, graded and the smallest tailed...

then boxed ready for landing and sale. All this while the boat steams back to port - and with roast beef on the menu the guys will be working fast and hard to enjoy a late supper before turning in for a solid night's sleep and sailing day in the morning.

Believe it or not, fishing is considered an unskilled job with regard to work visas for foreign nationals - this is not an issue for vessels that work outside the 12 mile limit - but for boats like Terrys that often fish grounds inside the limit it is a real issue and is making life extremely difficult - he and may others are fearful that they will not be able to continue without a huge recruitment drive in the UK for local crew!

A day at sea for the Nereus tracked by VesselTracker's AIS tool.

Hope you are all enjoying your Sunday! Reality here is we are trying to harvest langoustines in a gale of wind with short handed British crew.@carolinenokes @BrendanOHaraSNP @CIFA_Scot @DeidreBrock @isleseafoods @FergusEwingMSP @ukhomeoffice Serious shortage of skilled crew!! pic.twitter.com/HsTOE2SMF0

— Terry Jack (@nereus172) January 13, 2019

Anyone wanting to gain additional seagoing qualifications or enter the fishing industry in Cornwall can contact Seafood Cornwall Training.  Here is their January newsletter:

Sunday in to Monday morning's fish auction in Newlyn.

With another new crabber about to enter the fleet the Rowse boys are busy building another string of pots ready to be deployed off Lands end...

while work continues on the aluminium superstructure of the next potter/netter to join the fleet...

all five of these boats are either under construction or have joined the fleet in the last 12 months...

unskilled?! just how much skill do you need to handle the complexity of fishing gear - and this boat is under 10m...

probably the smallest boat to go up on the slip this year...

both beam trawls hang in the air so that the crew can repair any damage to the chain link mat and the net...

more than a day's work ahead...

new harbour fenders will  make getting ashore and aboard much easier...

and so into Monday morning, Maverick has both legs out ready for some underwater work on her hull...

while inside the market there's plenty of hake from boats like...

the netter, Ajax...

and ray from the netter Annie May...

while some big tub gurnards...

haddock...

and cod make up the rest of the net boat landings...

the beam trawlers are seeing more and more plaice full of hard row...

along with a handful of John Dory...

to go with the monk tails...

and Dover sole...

monk...

and megrims making up the best part of every beam trawler's trip when working the clean grounds...

this perfectly marked undulate ray is easily distinguished...

from its spotted cousin...

name the fish...

that auctioneer Ryan is now selling...

before he gets to the big landings of mackerel from the St Ives handliners...

very similar in appearance to the megrim sole but which fish is this?..

a shout out to all members of the Newlyn Fishermen's Forum that there is a meeting this Friday in the Seafood Cornwall Training room.

Commercial fishing and marketing of seafood if there’s no Brexit deal

Fish exports to the EU.

What the fishing, seafood and aquaculture industries need to do to prepare for rules and processes that will apply if the UK leaves the EU with no deal.

Contents

1. Rules for access to waters from 29 March 2019
2. UK waters
3. EU and third country waters
4. Quota allocations and fishing opportunities
5. North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) Convention Area
6. Regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs)
7. Access to ports
8. EU and third country vessels landing into UK ports
9. Import and export of fishery products
10. Exporting UK-caught fish and fishery products to the EU
11. Importing EU-caught fish and fishery products to the UK
12. Labelling and marketing of fishery and aquaculture products
13. European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF)
14. Eels and eel products

Rules for access to waters from 29 March 2019

When the UK leaves the EU, it will control and manage access to fish in UK waters, and be responsible for managing our:

• territorial waters (out to 12 nautical miles)
• Exclusive Economic Zone (out to 200 nautical miles or the median line with other states)

The UK will make sure that fisheries control and enforcement continue.

UK waters

There will be no change to your rights and responsibilities if you have a UK-registered vessel fishing in UK waters. You must continue to comply with the law and the conditions of your licence, including the economic link criteria.

Non-UK-registered vessels will no longer have automatic access to UK waters (subject to any existing agreements covering territorial waters).

EU and third country waters

There will be no automatic access for UK-registered vessels to fish in EU or third country waters (subject to any existing agreements covering territorial waters).

Quota allocations and fishing opportunities

If you’re a UK quota holder, the UK fisheries administrations will tell you what your allocation will be. They’ll aim to do this in March 2019.

The government will also confirm arrangements for:

• non-quota shellfish (scallops and edible/spider crabs)
• demersal species under the Western Waters effort regime.

There will be no automatic access for:

• the UK Fisheries Administrations to exchange fishing opportunities with EU member states
• for EU member states to exchange fishing opportunities with the UK

North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) Convention Area

You can prepare for the UK joining the NEAFC. For UK-registered vessels to continue fishing in the convention area, and landing into the EU, you must hold a current UK domestic licence. You’ll need this before you can apply for an international licence from the relevant fisheries authority.

Please contact your local fisheries authority office if you want further guidance on fishing internationally. You’ll also need to register with the NEAFC’s electronic Port State Control system and complete the Port State Control 1 forms.

Regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs)

The UK will join all relevant RFMOs as quickly as possible - it will no longer be a member of RFMOs through EU membership.

The joining process may take up to 6 months, so there may be a gap in our membership.

During this time, UK vessels may not be able to fish in international waters covered by RFMOs. We’ll keep fishermen informed of progress and what the outcome of a decision will mean in practice.

Access to ports

If you have a UK-registered vessel, you’ll no longer have an automatic right to land fish in any EU port. You’ll be allowed access to EU designated ports for:

• port services

• landings

• transhipment

• the use of market facilities (where vessels meet EU requirements on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing)

You must notify the relevant Fisheries Monitoring Centre of your intention to arrive into a designated port. You must notify vessel and catch related information.

You’ll be allowed access to EU designated ports and third country ports without first telling the port of your plan to visit in cases:

• of distress

• if there’s an unexpected event (force majeure)

 Your vessel may be inspected. This could include:

• a full document check

• inspection of the catch

• database checks (if you’ve supplied information electronically)

EU and third country vessels landing into UK ports

Non-UK vessels, including EU vessels, will need to follow the same rules that will apply to UK-registered vessels accessing an EU port. For example, they’ll need to give notice of their plans to land, except in cases of distress and unexpected events (force majeure).

EU vessels fishing in the NEAFC Convention Area and landing into the UK will need to complete a Port State Control 1 form.

Import and export of fishery products

You’ll need a catch certificate for importing or exporting most fish and fish products between the UK and EU.

You will not need a catch certificate for trade:

• in some aquaculture products
• freshwater fish
• some molluscs
• fish fry
• larvae

Use the detailed guidance to check when you’ll need a catch certificate and the rules for exemptions.

The rules on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing will not change.

Exporting UK-caught fish and fishery products to the EU

You’ll need a catch certificate with each consignment of fish or fishery products you export to the EU. It will be your responsibility as the exporter to complete a catch certificate.

If the consignment will be sourced from more than one UK vessel, you’ll need to complete a Multiple Vessel Schedule.

You’ll need to submit this along with the catch certificate.

Vessel owners or skippers making direct landings of UK vessels into EU ports will also need to issue a catch certificate.

You’ll need verification for the content of a catch certificate from the UK fisheries authority where the vessel is licensed. You will need this before submitting the content to the competent authority in the EU country of import. The UK fisheries authorities are:

• the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) in England
• Marine Scotland
• the Department of Agriculture, the Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland
• Welsh Government

The UK fisheries authorities are developing an IT system to deal with the increase in export catch certificates.

Importing EU-caught fish and fishery products to the UK

For EU imports, you’ll need a catch certificate for each:

• consignment
• direct landing of fish or fishery products .

The exporter will have to submit the certificate to the Port Health Authorities or relevant fisheries authority.

The certificate will need to be checked at least 3 working days before the estimated arrival time into the UK. This deadline could be adapted to take account of the type of fishery or distance from fishing ground to port.

Labelling and marketing of fishery and aquaculture products

The rules and standards for labelling and marketing in the EU and UK will stay the same. See the existing guidance on:

• fish sold for human consumption
• fish and aquaculture products

The roles of Producer Organisations will also stay the same.

European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF)

The UK government has guaranteed that all EMFF projects approved before 31 December 2020 will be fully funded.

Eels and eel products

Trade in the European eel (Anguilla anguilla), within and outside the EU, will remain subject to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This means the UK will not be able to import or export European eel. Most of the eel (Anguilla japonica) consumed in the UK is imported from China and so the impact on consumers should be limited.

Published 10 January 2019

The NFFO's thoughts on the first piece of Fisheries legislation to pass through parliament.

FISHERIES BILL - 2019

Both sides of the Christmas break have seen intense activity at Westminster as the Fisheries Bill, the first piece primary fisheries legislation for decades, passes through the parliamentary process. The central purpose of the Bill is to provide UK fisheries ministers with powers to set quotas and control access over fishing in UK waters, when the UK leaves the EU - and therefore the CFP.

In contrast to a febrile, not to say toxic, atmosphere elsewhere in Westminster, there is something like a cross-party consensus that these powers will be necessary, post-Brexit, as it would be irresponsible to leave a vacuum. The Bill also provides quite wide delegated powers to UK fisheries ministers to amend fisheries law retained from the CFP. Ministers would also use delegated powers and secondary legislation to provide for an adaptive and responsive future UK fisheries policy. This would contrast starkly with the CFP’s cumbersome and dysfunctional decision-making processes. In this too there seems to be a broad cross-party consensus, but with concerns to ensure that there are safeguards to ensure that such discretionary powers are not used in a capricious or perverse way.

Outside these central themes, the Bill is heavily shaped by the devolution settlement. The settlement inarguably makes fisheries management in the UK infinitely more complex and vexed, especially when there are different complexions of government in London and Edinburgh. The main vehicle for cooperation between the devolved administrations – joint fisheries statement – is an untried and untested concept with plenty scope for ambiguity and future conflict.

Likewise, in English fisheries, the Bill provides for powers to auction quota that are novel and likely to be controversial when it comes to implementation. Perhaps less controversially, the Bill provides new ways of mitigating chokes caused by the application of the landing obligation to mixed fisheries.

Given the wide recognition that the Bill is a necessary piece of enabling legislation that will allow the UK to manage its fisheries outside the CFP, the main focus of proposed amendments as the Bill passes through the various parliamentary stages, has been on various add-ons sought by MPs. These have varied from the useful, to the pointless, to the potentially damaging. There is a danger that poorly thought-through amendments and a tendency to seek to overload primary legislation, could, if allowed, replicate the CFP’s rigidity. The Government, so far, in committee stage has fought-off the more potentially damaging of these amendments.

The Bill is now about to face scrutiny and possible amendment in the House of Lords before returning to the Commons for a final vote.

NFFO

The Federation, working with parliamentary specialists, Connect, has:

• Supported the main purpose of the Bill
• Provided written and oral evidence to the Bill’s Scrutiny Committee and the Scottish Affairs Committee
• Provided comprehensive briefing materials to MPs of all relevant parties
• Met and briefed key players in the legislative process
• Built on our two successful lobby day events, each attended by over 60 parliamentarians
• Met with House of Commons library staff, whose role is to provide objective briefing materials to MPs

Sought a limited number of amendments including:

1. An advisory council to inform ministerial decisions
2. A dispute resolution mechanism to deal with conflicts between the devolved administrations
3. Highlighting the anomaly through which the English fishing sector is denied equivalent representation at ministerial level

Sustainable Fishing

The Government rightly puts sustainable fishing at the heart of the Bill’s objectives and affirms its commitment to manage our fisheries in line with the maximum sustainable yield principle. The arbitrary 2020 MSY deadline has correctly been dropped, mainly because it is unachievable and scientifically illiterate but also because it is an impediment to the practical, sustainable, management of real fisheries. The biomass of individual stocks can slip below MSY for environmental reasons affecting recruitment, and often do. The application of MSY in mixed fisheries often requires trade-offs to secure different but equally important objectives (for example, reducing discards/avoiding chokes or mitigating socio-economic impacts).

MSY is a valuable aspirational marker but as a legally binding straightjacket, it undermines sustainable fisheries management. As a warning, it should be carefully noted that if the MSY objective had been applied as a rigid, legally-binding, requirement at the Council of Ministers in December, most demersal fisheries in Western Waters would now be closed, with frightening consequences for fishing businesses and fishing communities.

It is important therefore that the Fisheries Bill contains realisable objectives and avoids superficially desirable but catastrophically naïve legal requirements.

Lords

The Bill now passes to the Lords and the Federation will be continuing its work by meeting with key figures in the House of Lords and by providing detailed briefing on the purpose and detail of the draft legislation, as required. The Lords’ role is that of a more deliberative, amending role, and so it is equally important that there is a good understanding amongst legislators of the central issues and legislative pitfalls.

Overload and Counterweight

The main danger with the Bill lies not so much with the proposed legislation but with ill-considered add-ons. The lesson was well learnt with the CFP, that overloading primary legislation delivers a cumbersome and inflexible system, incapable of addressing obvious errors, or dealing with new information, including formal scientific advice. In dealing with dynamic natural resources and a dynamic fishing industry, this rigidity has been disastrous within the CFP. As de facto fisheries managers, the Government has learnt this lesson well and foresees an important role for secondary legislation which can be amended relatively rapidly to meet new contingencies (as well as redefining retained EU fisheries law). All those concerned with practical implementation, rather than superficial posturing, will support this approach. In granting wide discretionary powers it is important to have necessary counterweights. Parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation will be important but equally, future fisheries policy should be informed by knowledgeable and experienced individuals in the form of an advisory council. The Government has not yet accepted this although there seems to be wide cross-party support for something to be put in place.

Summary

This is the most important piece of domestic fisheries legislation to have passed through Parliament for 30 years. As such, the Federation has devoted a great deal of energy and focus in ensuring that its central powers are adopted, and that it is not deformed by ill-considered amendments. We have suggested a limited number of changes to the legislation.

Further NFFO news here: