Tómas Heidar, chairman of the Icelandic negotiation committee on mackerel fishing, announced in a statement sent to the media on Tuesday that the European Union and Norway will be responsible for overfishing mackerel next year if they don’t review their decision on catching over 90 percent of the estimated quota for 2011.
Herring, another fish which has sparked disputes. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
The statement says that EU and Norway are ignoring the legal rights of other states, such as Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Russia, to have a larger share of the mackerel quota, ruv.is.
Both Iceland and the Faroe Islands have expressed their intention to catch more than ten percent of the remaining mackerel quota next fishing season, to the discontent of their negotiating partners.
The EU is considering whether or not to prevent Icelandic ships from unloading their catch in its member states because of the mackerel dispute. The issue was discussed at a summit of EU fisheries ministers in Brussels yesterday.
Click here to read more about the mackerel dispute.
