Once again, an agreement is being negotiated between the EU and the UK on fisheries and the rumours are swirling.
The Trade and Co-operation Agreement that governs many aspects of our relationship with Europe is under review. The fisheries chapter – source of great dissatisfaction to UK fishermen for the past four and a half years – appears to be one of the major talking points.
The EU got almost everything that it wanted out of the original agreement, including continued access to fish in the UK’s waters. That access provision, however, was to last only 5 years, after which it would need to be agreed annually. EU fishermen, predictably, do not relish the uncertainty that would come with annual access negotiations. Many of them have been living beyond their national means and developing businesses that are entirely dependent on the freedom to take resources from British waters. The EU, therefore, has been asking to revise the terms of the TCA, to acquire a right of access that will last for multiple years, perhaps even permanently.
Even before the negotiations began in earnest, rumours started to spread. First, we heard that the UK was about to surrender access to our waters in return for an agreement by the EU to buy British-made weapons. Next came the suggestion that access was simply going to be given away for free, as a gesture of goodwill to smooth the process of negotiating a better deal for some other industry. Most recently, we hear that access will apparently be exchanged for an agreement to make it easier for the UK to export food and drink to the EU and vice versa.
Three mutually exclusive rumours, within the space of a fortnight.
Of course, we have to remember that the two parties are in the middle of a complex and rapidly developing negotiation: it is perfectly possible that each of those stories was in fact true at the time. Times change and so do negotiating positions and, in the absence of concrete information, rumour takes over.
All we know for certain is that no agreement has been announced yet. The government has told us that they continue to negotiate and are set on getting a good deal for fishermen. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister – echoing the sentiments of Food Security Minister Daniel Zeichner in the House of Commons recently – told journalists: “we’re looking for an overall arrangement that’s beneficial to our fishers, and we’re determined to continue to support those communities.”
This is broadly positive, but the lack of specifics is a problem. The government has said that it will not provide a running commentary on the state of the negotiations, nor reveal its negotiating position. This makes sense as a tactic before talks begin, but now that they have started, what good purpose is served by our government continuing to keep its position hidden from us?
The EU’s negotiators have already spoken publicly about what they seek to get for their fishermen, so there are no secrets about what the EU wants. Furthermore, the British government must by now have revealed its negotiating position to the other side. Our government’s position on fishing is therefore only a secret from us and we cannot help but speculate about why they do not want us to know it.
The Labour Party in opposition was a strong supporter of the fishing industry on several crucial issues, but this has not yet translated into positive action now that they are in government. If they are indeed fighting to improve on the TCA deal for British fishermen, as they have promised, then everyone would benefit from them explaining exactly what it is that they intend to do. Admittedly, this could lead to embarrassment if they fail to get the deal that they hoped for, but I would submit that it would be easier to accept our negotiators losing if we knew that they had at least put up a good fight on our behalf. The outcome of these talks could be deeply consequential for the UK’s fishermen. It could secure what we have and create the conditions for sustainable growth; or it could constrain our fleets and our freedom to manage our own waters. We deserve an honest, adult dialogue with the people who are negotiating on our behalf.
The Conservative Party on Tuesday made its priorities for the fishing industry crystal clear and I am very pleased to see how closely they mirror the position that has already been articulated jointly by the NFFO and UKAFPO. Like us, they have said that they believe that any grant of permission to fish in UK waters should be used to gain benefits for the UK’s fishermen. Also like us, they want our territorial waters, within 12 miles of the coast, to be fished exclusively by UK vessels and they want to see a fairer distribution of quota. These are hardly extreme positions: they are no more than what any independent coastal state should have.
Maintaining our independence is the key reason why we do not want to see any deal on fishing to be tied to an unrelated agreement. Take, for example, the most recent suggestion, that the UK may swap access to our waters for an improved deal on agricultural and food exports. We are told that the EU wants the two to be entirely linked, so that if their access to our waters is ever restricted, the export deal will be terminated. In practical terms, the prospect of a sudden end to our ability to export food and drink products to the EU would be so disruptive and expensive that this would effectively give the EU permanent access.
The implications of this would be extremely wide-ranging. Our efforts to manage fishing in our waters would be severely constrained. Any new fisheries regulation could be claimed to be a restriction on the EU’s freedom to exploit our fish resources and threats to end our food export agreements could follow. Conservation measures could meet the same response, as could the government’s plans to licence more offshore wind farms. We only have to look at how the EU responded to the UK’s conservation measures on sand eels to see how readily they are willing to use trade disputes in an attempt to control the management of the UK’s waters. If we make this even easier for them to do, by tying fisheries access to export agreements, Britain’s maritime independence will be a fiction.
Some rumours imply that a deal is done; others say it’s all to play for. Either way, it seems likely that the decisions made in the next few days may have consequences – either positive or negative – that will be felt for years.