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Norway, a non-EU country, has had a fisheries agreement with the bloc since 1980, but its conditions must be renegotiated after Britain’s withdrawal from the Community.
“Negotiations with the EU and the UK on a 2021 fisheries deal have been severely delayed due to lengthy Brexit negotiations between the two countries and their fisheries position,” Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen, Fisheries Minister, told the legislators in Oslo.
“It is not guaranteed that the negotiations will be completed before the end of the year. If we do not have an agreement by January 1, we will not open the Norwegian economic zone to fishing vessels from the EU and Britain,” he said.
Under the EU-Norway agreement, both parties are granted unrestricted access to their fishing waters.
In September, Norway and the UK announced a bilateral agreement calling for annual negotiations on fishing quotas.
OE Ingebrigtsen said that Oslo and Brussels had agreed to negotiate a similar deal next year.
“We have been telling the EU for some time that we need a tripartite agreement, so now the ball is on the side of the EU,” he said.
Without the agreement, Norwegian fishing vessels would also lose access to EU waters.
There are important fish species in the Norwegian EEZ, including cod and herring. So far, a certain proportion of the quotas has been allocated to European fishermen.
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