The EU has agreed to a package of sanctions to be placed against Iceland and the Faroe Islands if the two island nations don’t cease fishing what the union believes to be unreasonable quantities of mackerel. Despite the threat Iceland appear unconcerned, with Minister of Finance Steingrímur J. Sigfússon saying that EU sanctions would have almost no impact on Iceland’s mackerel quota, the BBC reports.
While export of Icelandic fish to the U.K. accounts for 11% of HB Grandi’s sales, the company’s CEO Vilhjalmur Vilhjamsson told the BBC that should sanctions block the export of Icelandic fish to the U.K. then they would simply export their goods through other channels to end up in the same place. The market would not be killed, it would simply be displaced.
Steingrímur J. further noted to the BBC that “sanctions would be damaging but most of all damaging to the atmosphere – they would deteriorate the situation in terms of possibilities to solve this. But sanctions will not break Iceland.”
Related:
Mackerel Dispute Gets Tougher for Iceland
Controversy over Iceland’s Mackerel Continues Despite Quota Decrease
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