Fergus Ewing, Scotland’s fisheries secretary, has written to the United Kingdom's Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to highlight the potential impacts to the country’s salmon sector and other seafood products, unless issues surrounding export health certificates are immediately resolved.
In his letter to Michael Gove, secretary of state for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, Ewing stressed that in a no-deal Brexit scenario, the practical requirements of certification together with the need for border inspection posts would be resource intensive and “hugely damaging” to Scotland’s most valuable food export.
“The clock must be stopped on the Article 50 process as this is the only way to avoid any possibility of the U.K. crashing out of the E.U. on 29 March without a deal. Failure to do so, in knowledge of the catastrophic consequences, would be unpardonably reckless,” wrote Ewing.
The Scottish government’s work on contingency planning has identified that the number of export health certificates required by the salmon industry could quadruple from around 50,000 per annum to 200,000. This would cost around GBP 15 million (USD 19.6 million, EUR 17.1 million) extra each year – even if the E.U.’s more stringent requirements for certificates are disregarded, said Ewing.
“Industry will see no benefit from this additional paperwork. At the same time, imports of similar products to the U.K. from the E.U. will not be subject to these requirements, creating an asymmetry that is only to the detriment of our own industry,” Ewing said. “As a minimum, we would expect the U.K. government to be exploring with the European Commission urgently whether a temporary derogation from export health certification requirements could be possible.”
Ewing also asked Gove whether the U.K. government would be reimbursing the additional costs borne by the public sector or by industry.
