Quota notification, Fisheries Agency | The coastal fishermen expected a full storm. The new quota announcement is an embarrassing breeze

– Everything is connected, and it doesn’t help much with the outer breakwater if the trawlers on the outer side of the islands here run away with the fish, says vardø mayor Tor-Erik Labahå (Sp) to iFinnmark.

Before the weekend, Finance Minister and party leader Terje Slagsvold Vedum (Sp) came to Vardø to talk about the beautiful breakwater worth NOK 400 million which has entered the National Transport Plan.

The pier will arrange for the fishermen in Vardø to have better sleeping conditions.

But Vedum did not meet with undivided cheers among the fishermen in Vardø. The tension was palpable, and all conversations were about the settlement of the new quota notice.

Next week, the Storting will vote on the quota report. It will certainly not be the redistribution the Labor Party and the Center Party promised during the election campaign in 2021, when a coastal rebellion raged in the north.

The Labor Party and the Center Party sought, as predicted, a compromise on the right to get the quota report adopted. A majority consisting of the governing parties, the Conservative Party, the FRP, the Krf and the Left, have agreed on the content.

The coastal fishermen expected that it would finally work out in terms of redistribution from the large to the smaller ones. The redistribution came, but was by no means the big storm that the sea fishing fleet feared and the coastal fishing fleet expected.

It was an embarrassing breeze, where the open group gets a bit more redistributed from the top. Against ocean-going fleets gaining access to the lucrative resources in unfished third country quotas.

Redistribution, yes. A redistribution that fundamentally strengthens the smallest coastal fishing fleet, and the land industry? No.

The landing obligation is removed. The industry on land has, so to speak, been written out of the message. Fiskeribladet writes in an editorial that the increased ownership ceiling, and the introduction of the ID quota for the smallest fleet, will cause the structuring of quotas to accelerate.

“This is happening despite the fact that the governing parties in the Hurdal platform say no to further structuring for those under 11 metres. It also stands in stark contrast to the National Audit Office’s conclusion that collecting the quotas was a problem for both the fleet and the coastal communities.” writes Fiskeribladet.

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The whistle has taken on a different sound since Cecilie Myrseth (Ap) and Geir Adelsten Iversen (Sp) campaigned in Troms and Finnmark respectively in 2021 with promises of major redistribution. Now there is an emphasis on predictability for the industry in all channels.

Predictability is good. The quota report delivers the greatest predictability to the largest owners. Therefore, it is relatively quiet from Ålesund. Geir Adelsten Iversen (Sp) is not quiet.

– Here the opportunity we have to strengthen the coastal fleet and thus the industry is being dismissed. We have the legal basis needed to get more fish to the land plants, and thus growth in the fishing villages, but the parliamentary majority is not willing to use the room for action. Sadly, the opposing forces, those who do not want to turn the tide, have won, says Iversen to iFinnmark.

The Finnmark Labor Party doesn’t have much to cheer about either. They were not consulted with their annual meeting resolution on the structural quotas.

As predicted, the quota announcement will be a real uphill battle for the new fisheries minister, Marianne Sivertsen Næss (Ap).