NI fishermen ‘hopeful’ EU is softening in Brexit talks over fishing rights in British waters

Harry Wick, CEO of the NI Fish Producers Organisation, was speaking to the News Letter as the UK negotiates with the EU on Brexit implementation. 

He recently told the News Letter that NI’s fishing industry was optimistic that Brexit will see NI get a fairer share of fish from British waters and is “optimistic about achieving significant expansion” in jobs as a result.

Up until recently the EU had been insisting on maintaining all their current fishing rights in UK waters.

However earlier this month Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, warned EU governments to to be “realistic” on what could be secured.     

Diplomats said that Mr Barnier was trying to break the deadlock on fisheries and had suggested reallocating old British rights to fish in EU waters to France, Denmark and Belgium.

In the wake of Mr Barnier’s plea for compromise, French minister for European affairs Clement Beaune warned his country’s fishermen they could not expect to enjoy the same rights after Brexit.

He told radio station France Info: “If we told our fishermen that we had drastically reduced their access to the British waters – on which they depend for their economic survival – they would say that is indecent and they would be right. However, after Brexit, it will not be as it was before.”

Mr Wick said he was “hopeful” the reports are true but said he would not trust them. However he agreed that the EU call for compromise had created tension with French fishermen. “Yes that is right,” he said.

Fishing is very important to Boris Johnson in presenting a successful Brexit to the public.

“Fishing is fairly totemic for the UK, partly because if Boris Johnson wants to bring back a Brexit that is easy for the layman to gauge as successful, then the repatriation of fishing rights to the UK has to be a pretty high priority.”

NI fishing industry ‘optimistic that Brexit means more fish and more jobs’

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