Fishermen ‘ready’ for EU tariffs on exports
ANO-DEAL Brexit at the end of this year will mean tariffs on some fish and agricultural exports to other EU countries, George Eustice, the Defra Secretary, has told an inquiry in the House of Lords.
“There would be significant tariffs on lamb in the absence of an agreement. That would be our number one concern,” Mr Eustice, the MP for Camborne and Redruth, said.
“If there is no free trade agreement (FTA), there is a high probability that the EU will put tariffs on our fisheries exports. Although tariffs are always going to be unwelcome, on the key species that we export, tariffs are reasonably low. They would be manageable.”
For example, the average tariff for shellfish is 7-8%, Mr Eustice said.
He added that the fishing industry was prepared to accept that.
“The fishing industry really wants us to take control of our exclusive economic zone and get a fairer settlement of those fisheries resources.
He said Defra recognised that there would be consequences, including border checks, export health certificates and catch certificates.
“We are seeking zero tariffs for all goods and tariff-free access for our sectors into the EU, and in return granting them tariff-free access for their agri foods into the UK market,” Mr Eustice told the House of Lords EU Environment sub-committee, chaired by Cornish peer Lord Robin Teverson.
“We are seeking a partnership agreement on fisheries that we think should be modelled on the EU/Norway agreement. We want to be like Norway,” he said.
The Norway model commits to annual negotiations.
Lord Teverson said the talks seemed to be “very much on a knife edge”, but Mr Eustice replied: “You have to be optimistic in this area. The EU has a habit of going to the wire.”
He said that the EU had been showing a lack of flexibility on level playing field provisons and they wanted to have us bound by EU regulations in the long term.
On fisheries they were “slow to recognise the realities of international law”, he said. But he added: “We only catch about half of the fish in our waters. The other half is allocated to other parts of the EU fleet. It’s understandable that they would be apprehensive about a departure from what we’ve got.”
On other negotiations, Mr Eustice said: “We’re not really asking for anything unrealistic. Much of what we’re asking for is modelled on an EU-Canada free trade agreement. We’re not looking for anything that is special and bespoke.”
He said the pandemic had affected plans for border controls for EU goods coming into Britain – putting in place the border controls and recruiting staff.
As a result, Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office Minister, has announced a phased approach, starting with lighttouch administrative checks, and extending that to physical checks starting from July next year.
The government has admitted there will be checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea after the Brexit transition period – despite Boris Johnson’s promises last year that there would be no such barriers.
However, Mr Eustice said: “We don’t see the fact that England may over time diverge from the EU but in some areas Northern Ireland won’t, necessarily being a major problem in the UK internal market.”