The initial European Union draft Brexit deal published nearly two weeks ago was clearly unacceptable to Theresa May. That by itself may be a part of the EU strategy to put the pressure on the United Kindom to eventually decide to keep the UK as close to the EU as possible. But it may also be a play in the Brexit poker-game putting the pressure on the UK to call the EU bluff!

What then does that exactly mean then for seafood? In order to seek answer to that we need to understand what are the stakes for UK when it comes to the seafood industry. The UK seafood industry has many interactions with the EU. Some of those are derived from the core four founding principles set out in the Treaty of Rome, the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Lisbon. This translates into that the waters surrounding the UK currently form part of a common EU resource, with shared EU governance. This includes fisheries and other policy arrangements such as the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and various other directives and as such the EU has a direct bearing on UK seafood operators involved in fisheries management, production, capture and trade.

Upon the UK joining the EU, the emphasis was placed on a common market. The EU has therefore a direct bearing on UK seafood operators in terms of trading and access to seafood customers. Both the UK seafood operators and the UK businesses have to comply with all applicable EU Regulation and guidance whether trading inside or outside the EU single market.

The free movement of people has provided the UK seafood operators with a welcome supply of employees, particularly in capture and seafood processing activities. Again as such the EU has a direct bearing on UK seafood operators in terms of access to labor. In the food and drinks manufacturing sector more than 30 percent of the labor is from the EU. 

In addition to the above mentioned, some small financial support has been given to seafood through the use of EU grants and public fund support. This has benefitied the production, processing and marketing of fisheries products.

As the access to UK waters brings the EU about seven times more landings by EU vessels compared to the landings of UK vessels from EU waters as is the case for shellfish. Any change of the access to UK waters by EU vessels would then have significant impact on the seafood industry with the EU. How large the the quota shift from EU fishing vessels to UK vessels will ultimately depend on the final results of the Brexit negotiations.

The EU has proposed that goods could move smoothly between the UK and the rest of the EU but at the price that EU gets unchanged access to UK waters.

In terms of the overall seafood trade with the main seafood trading partners within the EU the UK is a net exporter in terms of value.

 

 

Maintaining the unhindered exports to the key seafood markets within the EU is an important goal for the seafood industry within the UK. The question is however how will this play out when it comes to the seafood interest in the rest of the EU countries?

It is worth noting that in 2016, financial and insurance services contributed £124.2 billion in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy, 7.2% of the UK’s total GVA and the UK had a surplus of over £60 billion on trade in the financial and insurance sectors in 2016. In the initial draft agreement EU is proposing limits on the access of the financial industry to the EU markets. Does this then mean that the the UK could call the EU bluff and trade financial access for seafood? That remains to be seen when we get closer to the deadline in about one year.

To find out more about exports from the UK and the state of Brexit keep following our analysis on seadatacenter.com. Please contact us at info@seadatacenter.com for more information.

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