June 21, 2016 — Gov. Charlie Baker has tossed his two cents across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Swedish lobster contretemps.
Sweden is attempting to convince the entire European Union — which numbers 28 member states — to ban the import of American lobsters to Europe.
The Massachusetts governor, in a letter dated June 16 to a chief official of the European Union, warned that a proposed ban on the importation of American lobsters into the EU would significantly and negatively impact United States and Canadian fishermen, while also imposing an economic hardship on European consumers and seafood distributors in Europe and the U.S.
The letter to Daniel Calleja Crespo, the EU’s commission’s director general for the environment, closely mirrors similar positions of NOAA Fisheries and its Canadian counterpart.