News / Faroe auctions mackerel quota
THE Faroe Islands last year earned an extra 13 million euros (just above £10 million) by auctioning off some of its additional mackerel quota, the Faroese government has said.
In a newsletter, distributed on Tuesday, the government said that this year politicians were keen to make even more money from mackerel for the Faroese exchequer.
A war of words has broken out between Norway and the EU on the one side, and Iceland and Faroe on the other, after the two island nations set their own mackerel quota outside a multinational management agreement.
As negotiations have so far produced no compromise, it is likely that Faroe will again set a quota of 150,000 tonnes of mackerel for 2012.
Scottish fishing leaders are furious, accusing the neighbouring islands of exploiting the seas unsustainably.
But politicians say the marine resources within their territorial waters were the property of the Faroese people.
According to the newsletter, pelagic companies were prepared to pay high prices for the right to fish for mackerel in Faroese waters.
In addition, some of this year’s quota is likely to be given to Russia in exchange for Faroese cod quota in the Barents Sea.
The director of the economic council, Thomas Dam, argues that Faroese authorities needed to repeat the auctioneering success of the previous year in order to lower the deficit in the national budget.
One way of achieving this is by making Faroese fisheries policy more economically strategic and goal-oriented, according to the newsletter.
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