Faroe Islands steps up EU fish fight with WTO panel

(GENEVA) - The Faroe Islands on Wednesday advanced its battle with the European Union over fishing rights as the World Trade Organisation agreed to examine the dispute.

A meeting of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Board decided to grant a request by the Faroe Islands to create a panel of experts to probe EU measures restricting entry into the bloc of herring and mackerel caught by Faroe fishermen.

The autonomous Danish province, located between Norway, Iceland and Britain in the North Atlantic Ocean, first requested consultations on the issue last November, but they went nowhere and it asked the WTO to move the dispute to the next level.

The EU accuses the Faroe Islands of massive overfishing and last August adopted a package of trade sanctions against the territory, which while under the sovereignty of Denmark is not part of the EU.

The Faroe Islands maintain that the EU measures violate the rules of international trade because they are discriminatory and deny freedom of transit.

The measures ban imports of herring and mackerel from the north-east Atlantic or caught under the control of the Faroe Islands, as well as fishery products containing or made of such fish.

The herring stock in question was until last year managed jointly by Norway, Russia, Iceland, the Faroes and the EU through an agreed long-term management plan using pre-established catch quotas.

But in 2013 the Faroes decided to rip up the agreement and establish an autonomous quota five times bigger than what the EU said was reasonable.

In the WTO case, Denmark is representing the Faroes archipelago, which is home to about 50,000 people, with fishing a mainstay of the economy.