Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Mac Lochlainn and Deputy McConalogue. There is absolute unity among the 27 member states on the approach to fisheries. I qualify that statement by pointing out that fishing is not an issue for a significant number of member states. In the context of my overall engagement on Brexit-related matters across the Department's range of responsibilities, some member states are impacted upon by Brexit while others are not especially excited about the issue. I refer, in particular, to countries in southern Europe and member states that joined to the European Union more recently. For these countries, Brexit is a remote issue.

Our approach to the negotiations started at home and involves extensive engagement through consultative forums in the Department and sectoral dialogue organised through the fishing sector to create an agreed position on Brexit with the industry. It is entirely inaccurate to suggest that my Department and the fishing industry are at polar opposites of the spectrum in respect of the approaches we are taking to the negotiations. That is not the case and if the Senator has any doubt about that, he should note that I have shared platforms with representatives of the fishing industry, most recently at Seafest in Galway.

With the possible exception of one, all the relevant organisations agree that we need to keep the Brexit negotiations separate from the next round of discussions on reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. This approach makes sense. The member states that would be most adversely impacted upon by the United Kingdom adopting "lifting-the-drawbridge" approach to its territorial waters post-Brexit include France, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Ireland. I have had the privilege of attending one December Council meeting and we will continue to fight tooth and nail at every December Council, including next December's meeting, to ensure that we secure the best possible deal for Irish fishermen in the current framework of the Common Fisheries Policy. While every country wold like to secure more from these negotiations, that is the construct of the current Common Fisheries Policy.

It would be wildly inappropriate to try to put the Common Fisheries Policy up for renegotiation when we are trying to build a common platform with the member states to which I referred, all of which share our analysis on Brexit matters and are equally impacted upon by the volume and value of fish they take from European waters. Why is that the case? The reason is that to do otherwise would mean stating on the one hand that we share their analysis of Brexit and seek to achieve the same outcome as they do, while, on the other, trying to pick their pockets by taking some of the fish allocated to them under the Common Fisheries Policy. That is not the way to win friends and influence people. We would quickly find ourselves isolated in the context of the platform we have built with like-minded members states.

There is an issue that needs to be addressed in the next round of reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. Running the Brexit and Common Fisheries Policy reform processes in parallel would undermine the cohesion that exists in the analysis of the problem for member states, as well as the desired outcome. There is absolute unity on this among the governments of the affected member states which are drawn from a range of ideologies. This analysis is also shared by the industry, which is why I shared a platform in Galway recently with representatives of the Danish and Belgian fishing industries, alongside representatives of the Irish fishing industry. They articulated a common cause in the industry alliance in addition to the common cause among member state governments and Ministers whom I have met. I have met nearly all of the relevant Ministers of the member states to which I referred and I will bring the French Minister for fisheries up to speed on the position on Friday next. He has only recently been appointed and I previously met his two predecessors.

We are in serious engagement with the other affected member states. We share our analysis of the problems we face and feed this analysis into the Barnier negotiating team as an agreed position. Our primary concerns are access to fishing grounds, quotas and the possible consequences should member states be displaced from UK fishing waters and shift their fishing efforts elsewhere. Under the Common Fisheries Policy, member states do not enjoy a guaranteed or automatic right to fish for stocks in other waters in the event that they are excluded from UK waters. We have been assiduously building a coalition of willing and like-minded member states on the issue of Brexit and feeding this shared position into the Barnier negotiating team.

We have made clear statements on the issues of access, quotas and displacement. In truth, the UK has a very strong hand. If the EU takes a silo approach to the negotiations, the UK will hold most of the aces. Our stated position is that it is not sufficient to say we want continued access to UK territorial waters. We want the negotiations to be conducted not in isolation but as part of the broader trade agreement. If, for example, financial services companies in London want to passport their products into the European Union or if Britain wants to sell Nissan cars manufactured in Sunderland in the EU, fishing should be part of the bigger trade negotiation.

Members will have heard UK politicians state a number of times that no deal is better than a bad deal. I understand that the World Trade Organization tariffs that would apply to fisheries in the event of no deal being reached and a hard Brexit would be set at 4%. The UK exports 70% of its catch to the EU. Given global demand for fisheries, if Britain retained access to EU markets, a tariff of 4% would not be an impediment. As such, it would gain all of the riches with very little consequence. What we are doing is building an agreement with other member states. We want to park all the issues in respect of the Common Fisheries Policy until we secure an agreement on Brexit. The Irish industry is involved in an industry alliance across like-minded and affected member states.