7. Proving there’s nothing like trade sanctions to spur negotiations, the so-called “Mackerel Wars” officially came to a partial end this year in March when fisheries officials from the Faroe Islands sat down to sign a five-year quota agreement with the EU and Norway.
The Faroes, together with Iceland, had been locked in a bitter dispute with the rest of the coastal EU states and Norway over fishing quotas for mackerel, and to a lesser degree, herring, in a conflict dating back a good five years. Both the Faroes and Iceland argued that current stock data showed the small pelagics were migrating to the colder northern waters, justifying higher quotas for their countries than the EU and Norway were willing to agree to.
And so, all parties continued to battle over the issue, every few months holding marathon negotiation sessions that went nowhere until the EU decided in August 2013 to press its point with herring and mackerel trade sanctions against the Faroes. That meant the Faroes couldn’t export herring or mackerel to the EU, and EU vessels couldn’t fish for herring or mackerel in their waters. While the sanctions did not mention any other nation, the message was clear: Iceland was next.
That spurred a whole new round of talks, which ended this spring with a resolution, or at least part of one. The Faroes agreed to a quota everyone could live with. The 12 March agreement did not mention Iceland, but a statement from the office of Maria Damanaki, then European commissioner of maritime affairs and fisheries, said the agreement “makes room for another Coastal State to join at a later stage.”
The agreement led to the EU lifting the trade sanctions, but the future of Iceland’s quota is still up in the air. In October, Iceland cited a new report on stocks as reinforcing its previous arguments, and as of this writing, the wars appear to be going on.
