EC Archives - Saving Seafood

EU pleads with US judge to limit discovery in salmon price-fixing class-action lawsuit

July 21, 2021 — The European Union has not issued any public comment regarding its antitrust investigation into Norwegian salmon farmers for more than a year, but on 13 July, it made clear its inquiry is still active.

In a brief filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, the European Commission contended that a class-action suit filed on behalf of U.S. purchasers of Norwegian farmed salmon in 2019 is interfering with its investigation. The lawsuit accuses Mowi, SalMar, Lerøy Seafood, Grieg Seafood, and Cermaq Group of exchanging competitively sensitive information among themselves, with the aim of artificially controlling the price of farm-raised salmon sold in the United States.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US-EU trade war winding down with five-year suspension of tariffs

June 16, 2021 — The United States and the European Union have resolved a trade dispute that had resulted in a ramping up of tariffs, including on some seafood products.

The quarrel, dating back to 2004, centered around subsidies for European airplane-maker Airbus and U.S. plane manufacturer Boeing. The dispute was brought before the World Trade Organization, which ruled in October 2020 that each side could impose billions of dollars in tariffs.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Some Relief For Seafood Industry Thanks to Airbus-Boeing Deal

June 16, 2021 — On Tuesday the United States and European Union announced a cooperative framework to address the large civil aircraft disputes which have been raging since 2004. As part of the agreement, the U.S. and EU have agreed to move away from “past confrontation in pursuit of a cooperative future by suspending the tariffs related to this dispute for five years.”

“After years of bitter litigation and weeks of intense diplomacy, we have reached a deal on a set of high-level principles that resets U.S.-EU engagement in the large civil aircraft industry,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a press release. “We are strongest when we work with our friends and allies, and the partnership with European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis is a demonstration of that principle in action.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

Britain and EU sign fishing deal – but it ‘won’t please everyone’

June 3, 2021 — Britain and the European Union on Wednesday agreed the first ever annual deal on the management of shared fish stocks after Brexit.

In anticipation of a potential backlash from British fishermen, Whitehall sources on Wednesday night cautioned that agreement would not “please everyone”.

Brussels said the new fishing agreement proved that the UK and EU could work together after months of tensions since the UK left the Brexit transition period on December 31.

The European Commission said the new deal created a “strong basis for continued EU-UK cooperation in the area of fisheries” after months of negotiations, which began in January.

The agreement sets out the total allowed catch (TAC) for more than 75 shared stocks in UK and EU waters for the rest of the year.

The TAC, which aims to prevent overfishing, is then divided between the two sides on the basis of quotas agreed in the Brexit deal on fishing on Christmas Eve. Both sides had agreed to use the 2020 TAC until a deal could be found.

Read the full story at MSN

Targeted Ocean Protection Could Offer 3x The Benefits

March 23, 2021 — The new paper is the most comprehensive assessment to date of where strict ocean protection can contribute to a more abundant supply of healthy seafood and provide a cheap, natural solution to address climate change, in addition to protecting embattled species and habitats.

As reported in Nature, researchers identified specific areas of the ocean that could provide multiple benefits if protected. Safeguarding these regions would protect nearly 80% of marine species, increase fishing catches by more than 8 million metric tons, and prevent the release of more than one billion tons of carbon dioxide by protecting the seafloor from bottom trawling, a widespread yet destructive fishing practice.

BLUEPRINT TO PROTECT NATURE

The study is also the first to quantify the potential release of CO2 into the ocean from trawling. It finds that trawling pumps hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 into the ocean every year.

“Ocean life has been declining worldwide because of overfishing, habitat destruction, and climate change. Yet only 7% of the ocean is currently under some kind of protection,” says lead author Enric Sala, an explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society.

“In this study, we’ve pioneered a new way to identify the places that—if protected—will boost food production and safeguard marine life, all while reducing carbon emissions,” Sala says. “It’s clear that humanity and the economy will benefit from a healthier ocean. And we can realize those benefits quickly if countries work together to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030.”

To identify the priority areas, researchers analyzed the world’s unprotected ocean waters, focusing on the degree to which they are threatened by human activities that can be reduced by marine protected areas (for example, overfishing and habitat destruction).

Read the full story at Futurity

Brexit: UK fishermen fear losing their homes as export ban bites

February 22, 2021 — Since 1 January, the European Union has stopped British fishermen from selling oysters, scallops, clams, cockles and mussels, known as live bivalve molluscs (LBM), that are caught in so-called “Class B” waters.

The government says it is seeking an “urgent resolution”, while the European Commission told Sky News the ban, on health grounds, applies to all third countries and “is not a surprise” to the UK.

The Sailors Creek Shellfish company in Falmouth, Cornwall, has seen 99% of its business disappear.

Read the full story at SkyNews

EU says Brexit deal still ‘metres from the finish line’

November 20, 2020 — The European Union and Britain have made better progress towards a trade deal in the last few days but there is still a lot of work to do for an agreement to be in place by the end-year deadline, the bloc’s chief executive said on Friday.

Diplomats briefed earlier by the EU’s executive, which is negotiating with Britain on behalf of the 27 member states, said Brussels and London remained at odds over fishing rights, fair competition guarantees and ways to solve future disputes.

However, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sounded a more optimistic note on the last-ditch talks at a news conference, pointing to progress on the question of ensuring a level playing field for state aid.

“After difficult weeks with very, very slow progress, now we’ve seen in the last days better progress, more movement on important files. This is good,” she said.

Read the full story at Reuters

EU “regretably” introduces new tariffs on US goods – but most seafood is exempt

November 10, 2020 — The European Union has imposed countermeasures against many exports from the United States that it was awarded by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in lieu of illegal U.S. subsidies granted to aircraft-maker Boeing.

With the countermeasures agreed by E.U. member-states, the European Commission’s regulation increasing tariffs on U.S. exports into the E.U. worth USD 4 billion (EUR 3.4 billion) will be published in the Official Journal of the E.U.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EU ready to ease fisheries demands in Brexit talks: sources

May 27, 2020 — The EU is willing to shift its stance on fisheries in negotiations with Britain next week, sources said, in what would be the first major concession from the bloc in talks on their new relationship after Brexit.

Fishing is particularly politically sensitive for France, and the 27-nation bloc says it would not seal a new trade deal with Britain without a stable agreement on that issue.

Currently, fishing mostly takes place in UK waters but most of the catch goes to European Union fishermen.

Britain wants to unwind that after Brexit materialises at the start of next year, saying that, as a newly independent coastal state, it wants to be in control of its waters and fish.

But the EU has so far sought to maintain the status quo, a demand an official with the bloc suggested was a primarily starting point for negotiations.

Read the full story at Reuters

New emergency funding offered for EU’s coronavirus-hit seafood industry

April 3, 2020 — A new set of measures designed to help the European Union’s fisheries and aquaculture sectors deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been proposed by the European Commission through the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF).

With fishers forced to stay in port and fish farmers facing the prospect of having to dispose of unused products, the E.C. said the new measures could provide immediate aid during the coronavirus crisis.

Read the full story at Seafood Source