In a presentation to the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels today on behalf of European fishing representative body Europeche, Mr Gatt, chief executive of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen\u2019s Association, said that Iceland\u2019s significant unilateral quota for mackerel is threatening the sustainability of the stock and undermining the future livelihoods of European fishing communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can Iceland justify fishing flat out for mackerel when the stock is in their waters?\u201d he said. \u201cIf the European fleet adopted that attitude when the stock is in the EU zone, there would be very little fish left to swim in Icelandic waters. That\u2019s simply no way to manage fisheries if we are to pass on healthy stocks and viable enterprises to the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cCommissioner Damanaki has written to the Parliament stating the EU\u2019s intention to ban Icelandic mackerel landings into EU ports. This move is very much welcomed by the European pelagic fleet as a first step, but further stronger sanctions will be needed to have any meaningful effect as Icelandic vessels don\u2019t have a history of landing mackerel in the EU.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite incredible the Commission needs to invoke sanctions against a country seeking to join the Union, but clearly, protecting the rights of the existing Members must be the priority. The EU must stand up for the rights of those Member States already in the Union and ensure the stocks we rely on and our businesses are protected from countries on the outside. Given this is probably the EU\u2019s most valuable fish stock it\u2019s only right and proper that resolution of the dispute is a pre-condition for accepting Iceland into the body of the EU.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Gatt concluded: \u201cThe EU must also deploy consequential sanctions against Iceland until the dispute has been resolved to the satisfaction of the 14 Member States reliant on this stock.
\u201cIn addition, the EU must urgently develop policies to arm itself against those who seek to damage the businesses and fabric of the Member State\u2019s Communities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ian Gatt has said that further sanctions must be imposed upon Iceland and their Accession talks to join the EU put on hold until there is a satisfactory resolution to the ongoing dispute over mackerel quotas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-3767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3767"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=3767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}