Fish Are Chips in Post-Brexit Trade Bargaining

The U.K.’s exit from the European Union has sparked a battle over fishing in waters British and EU trawlers have shared for four decades. British fleets are keen to reclaim their seas, and EU counterparts risk losing prime fishing grounds. Complicating matters, much of the fish and shellfish caught by British boats is sold on the European mainland. The issue has emerged as a major stumbling block to a trade accord between Britain and the EU.

The U.K. has some of Europe’s most fertile fishing zones, and its fleet hauls the EU’s second-largest catch annually. Fisheries were a sticking point in the U.K.’s initiative to join the bloc in the 1970s, and British fishermen have lamented that their sector was sacrificed during negotiations to meet other trade goals. In recent years, more than half of fish and shellfish caught within 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) of the U.K. coast was landed by other EU countries. France, the EU nation that typically catches the most fish by value in British waters, has been seeking to ensure it maintains the same access.