The Faroese Parliament has hit the pause button on controversial changes to the country’s fisheries management regime, as an industry source put it.
The long-awaited bill went before the Faroese Parliament in May, which was seen as being extremely late in the day for such a crucial piece of legislation, and was subsequently suspended by the Speaker who justified his actions by stating that the bill would not get an adequate debate in the short time available for it – and a detailed discussion of the bill was needed. With only a few days left for Parliament to debate it, more than forty amendments had already been added to the fisheries bill before its suspension.
As the Faroese fisheries bill was suspended, speculation circulated on a possible vote of no confidence in the coalition government, but this has not been tabled. A bill tabled by the opposition earlier this year to extend the current industry management regime by some years was not passed.
The current situation leaves the industry in limbo as the present fisheries management legislation comes to an end on the 31st of December this year, and several industry figures voiced their doubts that the authorities will be able to be ready for the 1st of January 2018 when the new management regime is due to be in place.
“It will be very difficult to get everything in place for the 1st of January 2018, considering this is a total restructuring of the industry,” one industry insider commented. “It’s a complex process and time is running out.”
In addition to the bill itself, assuming Parliament can debate and reach agreement, the secondary process of issuing the executive orders that define the fine detail of every aspect of the legislation will also take time to put in place.
The bill can be presented to Parliament again once the new session opens on the 1st of August, complete with the amendments and quite possible a number of additional amendments – or the speculation is that a likely scenario is that a new bill will be presented once the proposals have been re-thought.
According to the Faroese state broadcaster, a number of additional amendments are expected to be made to the fisheries bill before it will be presented to Parliament again, dealing with the fundamental issues of days at sea and quotas.
The fisheries bill attracted a great deal of opposition within the industry earlier this year when it was due to go before Parliament, with fishermen openly protesting outside Parliament against the proposed changes to management that would strip out much of the days at sea regime that is widely seen to have been an effective system over the last twenty years, replacing it with quotas, as well as imposing levies on catches and putting in place a system of quota auctions.
