December 12, 2018 — Scotland Fisheries Secretary Fergus Ewing has written to the U.K. government raising serious concerns about the current Brexit Withdrawal Agreement’s failure to ensure tariff-free access to European markets for Scotland’s seafood exports.
Ewing warned Environment Secretary Michael Gove that non-tariff barriers like customs delays at ports could be catastrophic for an industry that relies on frictionless passage across borders, particularly for fresh and live products.
Ewing wrote that despite the Prime Minister Theresa May’s claims, a direct link between seafood trade and access to waters has been conceded, allowing for exclusion of fisheries and aquaculture from tariff-free access through a temporary customs union, if a fisheries agreement acceptable to the European Union cannot be achieved.
“Worse still, aquaculture has been included in this linkage despite having no connection to access to waters or quota,” Ewing wrote. “Salmon farming alone was the [United Kingdom’s] largest food export in 2017. Its inclusion is profoundly disturbing, risking the imposition of tariffs, which will inevitably increase the cost of exports, and perhaps even more importantly the spectre of non-tariff barriers hangs over Scottish seafood exports, which absolutely rely on frictionless passage across borders.”