Norway will ban Union and British fishermen from entering its waters if there is no agreement

Norway will ban Union and British fishermen from entering its waters if there is no agreement

Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, threatened to close its waters after the New Year to fishermen from EU countries and the United Kingdom if a tripartite fisheries agreement is not reached by 1 January. This was stated by the AFP news agency. Fishing in Norwegian coastal waters is the subject of a bilateral cooperation agreement between the EU and Norway concluded in 1980. However, in view of Britain's departure from the EU on 31 January this year, the Oslo government has long announced the need for a new, tripartite agreement between the EU, Norway and the United Kingdom. "Negotiations with the EU and the United Kingdom on fisheries agreements for 2021 have been significantly delayed due to the extension of the Brexit negotiations between the two parties, including fisheries negotiations between them," said Norwegian Fisheries Minister Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen. He clarified that it was not at all certain that Brussels and London would conclude negotiations on their future partnership agreement by the end of this year, which meant that in this case the Norwegian maritime economic zone would remain closed to EU and UK fishing vessels. Norway and the United Kingdom announced in September that they had concluded a bilateral fisheries agreement, which provides for the need for annual negotiations on reciprocal fishing quotas. According to Minister Ingebrigtsen, the government in Oslo will start negotiations with Brussels on the same agreement, but Norway wants an agreement to be signed that includes all three parties. "We have been taking the initiative for a long time and we are saying to the European Union that tripartite agreements are needed, so the ball is now in the Union's court," Ingebrigtsen said. However, without such an agreement, from 1 January next year, Norwegian fishermen will also lose access to EU territorial waters. For Europeans and British, Norwegian waters are an important fishing area, especially because of the catches of herring and cod. Fisheries is one of the three main obstacles for which the EU and Britain are unable to agree on the development of post-Brexit relations.