The EU’s former fisheries chief has said it is an illusion that the UK will be able to dictate its fishing policies after Brexit.

Maria Damanaki, the former commissioner for fisheries, who oversaw the most sweeping reforms of the EU’s common fisheries policy in decades, said: “The idea that you can control fisheries at a national level is an illusion for any country, but especially the UK - with Brexit or without. International cooperation is needed to keep stocks and control.”

Damanaki pointed to the UK’s geography, with most of its fishing grounds shared with or bordering upon those of other nations. “How would you control the waters between Ireland and the UK?. How would you control the other international waters [such as the North Sea and the English channel]?”

“This does not make sense,” she said, in response to claims that post-Brexit Britain could set its own catches without input from the EU and other European countries.

A further problem comes with fish imports, on which the UK relies for much of the fish sold in shops, which would be subject to new international trade agreements, she said.

Damanaki, a Greek politician, was the fisheries commissioner of the EU for five years from 2010 to 2014. During this time she implemented wide-ranging reforms to the common fisheries policy, which included phasing out discards and revising fishing quotas so that they were based on scientific findings about the health of fish stocks, rather than historic fishing rights.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Maria Damanaki introduced wide-ranging reforms during her tenure as EU fisheries commissioner. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA

Damanaki said: “I’m not saying that the EU common fisheries policy is a paradise, or the best in the world, but the UK was supportive of the new CFP [in the reforms of which it participated]. They [the UK government at the time] were a substantial contributor to creating that. So I really can’t see the point [of abandoning it].”

She said that some of the arguments by the Leave campaign before the referendum were exaggerated. During the leadup to the vote, Nigel Farage led a flotilla of small fishermen up the Thames, saying that they would benefit from Brexit by being released from the EU’s CFP and able to negotiate new terms.

This was not feasible, according to Damanaki, who is the global managing director for oceans at US-based charity The Nature Conservancy. “The UK needs international cooperation on fishing. No country can face this problem alone. The oceans are too big for that,” she said.

Her views echo some of those put forward by conservationists following the EU referendum result.

David Powell, of the New Economics Foundation, said: “Fishers may have been sold a pup by the Leave camp. Fish in our waters don’t care about lines on maps, and we share every single major fish stock with other countries. We’ll need to keep on sitting down and reaching genuine agreement with our neighbours about who gets to fish what.”

He said that it was “hard if, not impossible, to imagine” that the UK would be allowed to catch more fish than it does under EU rules in a way that would satisfy countries with whom the fishing grounds are shared, and allow stocks to recover to healthy levels. He pointed to Norway, which has warned that the UK should not expect increased quotas after Brexit.

Conservationists also point out that it was the UK government, rather than Brussels bureaucrats, which chose to give the lion’s share of UK fishing quotas to the biggest vessels, instead of benefitting the small vessel fleet who employ most fishermen, and whose livelihoods are most precarious.

Paul Monaghan, the Scottish National Party MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, also cast doubt on the future of negotiations with the EU over fishing rights. “The UK government’s negotiations in respect of separation from the EU are at a very early stage,” he said. “However, it is already clear that they will be extremely complex and protracted - nowhere will this be more obvious than with the common agricultural policy and common fisheries policy.”



These policies were already due for reform within the EU, he said, making the job of sorting out the UK’s new position in the next two years even harder, while member states hammer out new terms for the bloc.

Monaghan said Damanaki was correct that the UK would not be allowed unilaterally to set its own fishing catches. He added: “Clearly, in the future, the EU will want to continue to guarantee the quality and sustainability of imports [such as fish and farm goods] into the single market, and that means the UK, regardless of the outcome of Brexit, will inevitably have to adhere to the EU’s ongoing terms and conditions in respect of important matters such as animal welfare and fish quotas, if trade is to continue with the EU.”

Dale Rodmell, the assistant chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, which represents smaller fishermen, said: “Fisheries policy has long been the subject of micro-management from Brussels and we need a system that’s more in touch with the local fishing communities in which it is being implemented.

“Of course, we will have to negotiate sensible bilateral arrangements with EU countries, but Brexit will provide an opportunity to address historic injustices in quota distribution and to control how many non-UK vessels fish in our waters and how and where they fish.”

Damanaki also called on the US, Japan and China to enter international discussions on fishing, to preserve fish stocks around the world. She said it was a matter of urgency for countries to come together to combat overfishing, as stocks of many major food species are depleted and demand from a burgeoning population is increasing. “Where are these fish [needed to feed the world] going to come from?” she asked. “What’s happening is a disaster.”