Denmark and Sweden press Brussels to act against UK in fishing dispute 

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Denmark and Sweden are leading demands for Brussels to take action against the UK in a fresh post-Brexit fishing dispute.

London has announced a ban on catching sand eels on Dogger Bank in the North Sea for environmental reasons — sparking outrage among Danish and Swedish fishers who scoop them up for use as pig feed and in producing fish oil.

Other coastal states have also backed Copenhagen’s demand for the EU to stand up to London, people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday after a meeting of foreign ministers the previous day.

Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told his EU counterparts at the session that they had to “take a common stand to avoid a de facto erosion of fishing rights”.  

“There is the fear of a slippery slope where EU fishing rights will deteriorate over time despite what was agreed with the UK,” an EU diplomat said on Wednesday, referring to the post-Brexit EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

The closure, announced in January and set to take effect from late next month, would cost Danish fishers €18mn annually, Rasmussen said, and also hit the processing industry. 

He wants the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to play hardball over fishing quotas and hasten a legal analysis of whether London has breached the terms of the trade deal.

“This is a humiliation for the EU. With the Brexit agreement, Danish fishermen paid dearly for access to British waters. Now, the UK is breaking the agreement. It is beyond criticism,” Svend-Erik Andersen, chair of the Danish Fishermen’s Association, said in a statement.

The UK agreed to give EU fleets continued access to its waters, but is allowed to take conservation measures so long as they do not discriminate against any nation’s fishing fleets.

Although the Dogger Bank ban applies to all boats, Denmark argues it amounts to de facto…