Association tackles the EU issue

LIU, the Association of Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners, is strongly against EU membership because, simply, it wants to keep hold of the success it has had in the last decade and more importantly keep a hold of management of its own waters.

“It wouldn’t be right for Iceland to adopt the Common Fisheries Policy and loose management of our own waters,” Fridrik Asgrimsson, md of LIU, told World Fishing.

The Association are worried that Icelandic quotas would eventually be given to other fishing nations if EU membership was agreed. Fridrik Asgrimsson also believes that access to fishing subsidies would not have a positive effect on the industry in the long term. “For so long the success of our industry has been down to the fact that we have been independent and stood on our own two feet as far as the industry is concerned,”

Others have argued that the industry would not be broken up in any way because of the relative stability clause in the Common Fisheries Policy that says the nation would still be able to manage its own waters. It is also argued that EU membership would bring a flood of foreign investment in Icelandic fishing companies.

This is something that Fridrik Asgrimsson thinks will eventually start to happen in the future because of the reputation both the industry and its fishing companies have gained over the past decade. He also says Iceland has very good relationships with many EU countries already.

But on the subject of Europe, Fridrik Asgrimsson says he thinks that the ITQ system that has been adopted and used successfully in Iceland will eventually be introduced by the EU.

“It works well here because vessel owners who are utilising ITQ’s see them as assets and a long term part of their businesses,” says Fridrik Asgrimsson. “I’m not saying it is a perfect system and it could work well everywhere but I think the opinion is that it is the best one for Iceland right now,” he adds.

On the industry in general, Fridrik Asgrimsson says that it is developing well and signs are good so far this year apart from the shrimp sector which has suffered stiff competition from Canada and from a general oversupply world-wide which has forced the price down in the first six months of 2002.

The Association were ‘disappointed’ at last years reduction in cod stocks, but where fully supportive of the Ministry in the action it had to take. “Vessel owners are now thinking about the long term,” says Fridrik Asgrimsson.

In the past year the Association has also faced the prospect of a seven week long seamen’s strike which has now a year on been almost fully rectified.

But one issue that the Association is still campaigning hard for is a return to whaling.

According to Fridrik Asgrimsson, there are approximately 400,000 whales in Icelandic waters which can take up to 2 million tonnes a fish a year which is equivalent to about the same amount of fish caught in a year by Iceland.

This is slowly beginning to have a devastating affect on the stocks in Icelandic waters. It has been estimated that if this pattern continues the cod stocks in Iceland will decrease by up to 20%.

“There is no doubt that we have to start whaling again and we have to start now,” says Fridrik Asgrimsson.

It is expected that Iceland will return to whaling in 2003 but there is much debate as to whether the amount of whales they will be able to catch will be enough to stop the creatures from having a negative affect on fish stocks.