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TALKS to try to end the mackerel stand-off between Iceland and the Faroe Islands and the European Union are to be held in Brussels next month, it was announced at the weekend.
The EU's fisheries spokesman Oliver Drewes said the talks would examine the background to the dispute and the best way of solving it. It is also thought that the EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki will visit Reykjavik and the Faroes at some point in the next few weeks to take things forward.
Mrs Damanaki said she had written a letter to Stefan Füle, the European Commissioner for Enlargement, saying it isn’t possible to justify the mackerel quota of the Icelandic fishing fleet.
Iceland and the Faroes say they have been excluded from multi-national negotiations on the mackerel fishery. Both countries have therefore set unilateral quotas of 130,000 tons (Iceland) and 85,000 tons (Faroes) which the EU says is too high and will damage the mackerel stock. Oliver Drewes said: “They catch much more than is justifiable for scientific purposes."
Iceland's Fisheries Minister has said his country is entitled to catch fish within its waters. "It is our right to do so as a coastal state. There is a huge amount of mackerel in the Icelandic fisheries zone, but we also want to come an agreement.
The Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners Association say they have as much as right to fish in Icelandic waters as the European Union has in its waters.
This position has brought fury from Scottish fishermen and Scotland's Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead described the decision as "wholly unacceptable", and said it risked harming well-managed stocks of the fish.
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