Scottish fishers said yesterday they were “bitterly disappointed” that the Faroese fleet’s EU mackerel quota will not be cut down to size following crunch talks in Copenhagen.
A deal which was signed in 2014 allows the Faroese to catch one-third of its mackerel quota, or 40,000 tonnes, in EU waters, though most of that catch is taken from Scottish territory.
Scottish fishing chiefs and politicians have said the agreement is unfairly skewed in the favour of the Faroe Islands and have called for it to be reviewed.
Those calls grew louder following a recent study from seafood industry body Seafish, which showed the Faroese have overshot their entitlement of mackerel by 1,400 tonnes last year.
The report also said the UK received no benefit at all in 2014 from the deal as its boats did not catch any mackerel or blue whiting in Faroese waters.
The arrangement was up for renegotiation in the Danish capital this week, but the chief executive of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association said the talks have passed without the European Commission redressing the balance.
Ian Gatt said the only good thing to come from the talks was that the Faroese quota for 2016 will be cut by 1,400 tonnes to make up for the fact they exceeded their entitlement last year.
Mr Gatt said: “The agreement continues to favour the Faroese greatly and we don’t understand why the European Commission failed to press for a fairer access arrangement.
“The Faroese are already being rewarded with a larger quota supposedly based on mackerel abundance in their own waters, so why do they need such a generous access share to fish for mackerel in Scottish waters?”
He also said the outcome will dent Scotland’s processing sector and undermines the government’s plans to deal with the current marketing difficulties for mackerel.
And the burden on Marine Scotland Compliance to monitor Faroese fishing activities will be huge next year, he added.