British fishermen want to take advantage of Brexit to reclaim the Exclusive Economic Zones of the seas surrounding their island. Breton fishermen are very worried about this!
Currently, only 32% of catches in their EEZs for UK fishermen
50% of Breton fishing landings come from British waters. The imminent prospect of nationalisation of their EEZ by the British, strongly demanded by their fishermen, therefore legitimately worries all fishing professionals in Brittany and France.
The British want to withdraw 75% of the fishing quotas which are allocated to fishermen from other countries. We can therefore imagine in the extreme a virtual disappearance of Breton deep sea fishing with repercussions on coastal fishing which would be increasingly in demand. British fishermen accuse other EU countries of monopolizing their resources since joining the Common Fisheries Policy. Indeed, out of an average of 1.6 million tonnes fished each year in UK waters, 68% by weight are caught by foreign vessels, for 54% by value.
EU boats are not the only foreign boats, as there are also agreements allowing Norwegians and Faroese to fish in the UK. 21% of catches are made by the Norwegians, 4% by the Faroese, i.e., in total, approximately 400,000T; in exchange, the Europeans have fishing rights in Norwegian waters. British fishermen forget that the CFP and the creation of the EEZs, which they resisted, made it possible to drive the Soviets out of their waters.
For their part, the British only catch 100,000 tonnes outside their waters. Access to British waters is therefore vital for the majority of European countries on the Atlantic seaboard. The share of British fishermen should probably be further reduced if we take into account the many boats flying the UK flag which are in fact Dutch or Spanish. Thus, the Dutch trawler Cornelis Vrolijk has 23% of British quotas for pelagic species. In total, British fishermen have only 18% of the quotas in the North Sea, 30% in the Channel.
The weight of history.
Obviously the British accuse the CFP of being responsible for their situation. This is partly true because, like all fishermen, they have been subjected to European constraints to reduce fleets and quotas as well as various political management measures. But the distribution of the quotas was made at the time of the entry of the United Kingdom into the European Union and is based on relative stability. This distribution was made at the worst time for the United Kingdom and especially England: when English industrial fishing collapsed, but Europe had nothing to do with it.
On a map of fishing ports in Great Britain, one can see that there are hardly any major fishing ports left outside of Scotland, Cornwall and the South West. The very powerful English fishery collapsed in the late 1970s and 1980s for two reasons. It consisted of two sectors dominated by industrial shipping: cod fishing in Iceland and herring fishing in the North Sea. The closure of Icelandic and then Norwegian waters led to the rapid disappearance of industrial cod fishing, while herring fishing did not survive the collapse of the resource due to overfishing. The disappearance of English fishing is also due to the industrial structure of shipping lines, unable to finance a restructuring on nearby alternative resources, with smaller boats. In Scotland, at the same time, the artisanal structure of the armaments allowed a development of fishing towards new resources in the North Sea, rather neglected before (langoustines, haddock, etc.).
It is true that Europe has aggravated the situation with its liberal policy favouring the capture of quotas by the passage of foreign vessels under the British flag. Fishermen tried to impose restrictions but they were not enough to curb the phenomenon. British fishermen have also suffered like others from policies aimed at restoring stocks, but they must now recognise that stocks are generally at a good level or in the process of being restored. The British fleet has also become very profitable, which makes it possible to renew the boats.
The situation of British fishing is therefore first and foremost the product of history before its integration into the European Union. Whether it is the English Channel or the North Sea, before the creation of the EEZ and the common fishing zone, European fishermen circulated from one coast to the other and had done so for centuries; there were tensions but they also looked for ways to limit them, like between Jersey, Normandy and Brittany. There is also a cohabitation agreement in the English Channel between the trailing arts and the dormant arts. The London Convention between European countries signed in 1964 recognised the rights of adjacent countries.
The illusions of British fishermen.
British fishermen are no doubt under the illusion that Brexit will allow them to find control over their waters, which they never had. The European Union is firmly committed to preserving fishing rights in British waters. She has an argument for this. The English fish market is weak and has even declined along with fishing itself; the markets are therefore in Europe and particularly in France. Moreover, it is impossible to imagine stock management independent of that of the European Union. Undoubtedly there will be moves to drive out boats, but in the long term, British fishermen do not weigh heavily against other interests. Environmental ENGOs are strong in the UK as well as energy business interests (wind and oil).
Marine space in the UK is increasingly occupied by wind farms.
Finally, the strength of British liberalism is such that forces are already pushing for the generalisation of ITQs (Individual Transferable Quotas) to eliminate more fishermen. If this is put in place, we will see the sale of quotas to foreign boats.
The state of stocks has greatly improved.
Britain's fishermen are not in sufficient numbers to exploit all of their resources, although Brexit may spur some revival where strength exists. The bosses must already make massive use of immigrant sailors.
In Scotland the sailors are more and more often from Asian countries.
Finally what will happen with Scotland? The Scots make up half of British fishing for 50% of the 11,000 anglers. Fishing there is very dynamic and fishermen want Brexit, but there is already talk of a new referendum on Scottish independence, strongly supported by the European Union. What will then weigh the last English fishermen in a country where a minister of fisheries also declared himself as the minister of amateur fishermen, more numerous and more influential politically and economically?
Territories against Markets.
In 1999, Christian Lequenne wrote in a Sciences Po review: “Contrary to popular belief, the 270,000 or so fishermen in the European Union do not go to sea with a strictly individualistic representation of their professional activity. On the contrary, they exercise their profession with the feeling of belonging to professional communities anchored in territories, a State, a port, a maritime region” [ 1 ].
This logic of territory is widely challenged by European policy which tends to favor the market by promoting the capture of quotas by foreign vessels changing flag, in the name of the free movement of capital. Brexit is also a reaction against this practice and should be an opportunity to move towards a new logic of management, that of maritime territories where fisheries resources are a democratically managed common good. There are already elements of such practices between fishermen who are often opposed but also know how to find compromises to adapt to realities and allow for changes. The model is that of the management of Granville Bay, managed by fishermen from Jersey, Brittany and Normandy.
There is no doubt that moving to the management of larger areas such as the Celtic Sea, the English Channel or the North Sea requires long negotiations and considerable resources. Milestones have already been set, but under the control of ENGOs; the WWF has piloted a management plan project for the Celtic Sea, while the Environmental Defence Fund has interfered in discussions on the management of scallops in Normandy and the English Channel.
While ENGOs can play their role of protecting biodiversity and the environment, it is not their mandate to take over fisheries management with the financial support of the European Union. The role of the latter should rather be to promote relations and discussions between fishermen by strengthening the role of the Advisory Committees to give them the mission of managing the maritime territories with the responsibility of good management.
The NFFO, the organisation of English fishermen, has expressed the concern to modify management approaches by developing territorial management approaches by rotation of fishing and fallow areas. There are therefore bases for getting out of a politicised and biased debate on a return of the British to control of their waters which has never existed. There are political positions in this debate in Great Britain that have nothing to do with history or reality. We must refocus the debate on the role of fishermen in collective management because, very quickly, Brexit will give way in the United Kingdom as in the European Union to a discourse on blue growth. The future of fishermen is the least of the worries of the majority of politicians because their interest in the sea mainly concerns other much more promising activities.
