Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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On a recent August evening, fishing boats from France and England were filmed ramming each other, in the Baie de la Seine in the English Channel, off the northern French coast, while rocks and other projectiles were tossed at one another. The sight, while alarming, is not entirely unknown in these waters, amid a long-running dispute between British and French fishing vessels over scallops and wider fishing rights in the sea between the two European nations. Under Europe’s Common Fisheries Policy, which has been in place since the 1970s (though subject to frequent updates), all European fishing fleets have equal access to EU waters and are allowed to “compete fairly”. Individual nations have the power to limit access of foreign fishing vessels within close proximity of its shores (12 nautical miles). While not subject to the fishing quotas that many other ocean species are subject to, scallops — a valuable and prized delicacy in both countries (particularly France) — have been treated to restrictions in an effort to protect stocks. French domestic law says that its own vessels cannot trawl scallops between mid-May and the end of October to help maintain stocks (and scarcity and consequentially, economic value, on the market). Under an agreement reached five years ago (following a previous confrontation between French and British vessels), British boats over a certain size agreed to refrain from fishing in the nearby waters. The truce, however, proved fragile as French resentment over trawling by smaller British boats built up, leading to the recent confrontation, while attempts to hold negotiations to reach a new agreement collapsed.
