The Scottish fishing sector says it is facing massive close-downs after fishermen have used up their allotted days-at-sea quotas much sooner than expected.
As the EU Fisheries ministers – except Scotland’s Richard Lochhead – had an informal meeting in Vigo, Spain, representatives of the Scottish seafood producers met Lochhead in Edinburgh to express their worries and fears that thousands of jobs would be put at risk if white-fish fishermen would be stuck in port for up to five weeks because of the limitations.
Lochhead told them he would do all he could to avert such a crisis, and a spokesman for an Aberdeen firm said The Fisheries Secretary had given assurances it was unlikely to come to that and also that the Scottish Government was working hard to protect the value-added sector.
One measure the processors want to see if the crisis strikes hard is relocation of support to help workers find jobs in countries such as France and Spain
Lochhead himself called it a “constructive meeting”.“The government and fishing industry is jointly overseeing the management of this year’s fishing effort in very challenging circumstances. Every step will be taken to help the industry manage its fishing opportunities to avoid an early closure of the part of the fishery that comes under the cod recovery plan”, he added.
Meanwhile, Scottish emotions continued to run high around the British exclusion of Lochhead from the EU Fisheries ministers’ informal meeting to discuss the upcoming CFP reform in Vigo.
Although the United Kingdom only speaks with one voice in the Council, the Scottish Fisheries Secretary is usually present at the meetings, with the UK standpoint laid down in internal negotiations prior to the meeting.
With 66 per cent of the landings into the UK, Scotland is one of the major fisheries powers in the EU. Around 90 per cent of the UK fish farming industry is based in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and Islands.
Scotland has been highly critical of the current Common Fisheries Policy, and in its response to the Commission’s Green Paper on a new CFP, the Scottish government said it should be “scrapped, not reformed”.
Instead of letting Lochhead accompany its Fisheries minister to Vigo, the UK government entrusted Scotland’s representation there to Lord Davies of Oldham, a junior minister in the department.
Mr Lochhead has said Lord Davies’s knowledge of fishing could “probably fit on to the back of a postage stamp, with lots of room to spare”, and accused Westminster of treating Scotland’s fishing industry “with contempt”.