The Russian fishery in Faroe waters and Faroe fishery in Russian waters cannot continue after New Year after the bilateral negotiations about the 2010-quotas between the two countries ended without any agreement.
For the last 32 years Russian trawlers have been fishing Blue Whiting and Mackerel in the North Atlantic waters around the Faroe Islands. According to the internet news site BluePulz.com, Russia had a quota of 87.000 tons of Blue Whiting and 11.500 tons of Mackerel in Faroe waters in 2009.
Meanwhile, Russia still holds the Faroe trawler Skalaberg in arrest in Murmansk, now for the fourth week. BarentsObserver reported in November that the vessel was arrested in the Barents Sea by the Russian coast guard and accused of having 618 tons more fish onboard than the official catch permission.
It was the Russian coast guard vessel Ural that made an inspection onboard Skaloberg while the trawler was fishing in Russian economical zone in the Barents Sea in mid-November.
BluePulz now reports that a court hearing in Murmansk is set for Thursday this week.
Both Faroese and Russian fishery authorities agree that there has not been any overfishing of the Faroese Cod quota in the Barents Sea. The Danish Foreign Minister is said to have been involved in what Bluepulz calls a bizarre case.
According to the internet site, the Russian coast guard has forwarded their claim to the Murmansk court, demanding a fine of over DKK 4 million (€ 0,6 million), plus the seizure of the vessel and the on board production. Total value of the vessel and the on board production are estimated to DKK 220 million (€26 million).
On Saturday, 26 of the crew members of Skalaberg arrived home after being onboard the vessel in Murmansk since November 19th. The crew members were allowed to drive bus over to the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes and continued from there with a charter plane to the Faroe Island.
The same day as the crew went home, Vitaliy Kasatkin, head of the Murmansk vessel owner association, and Nikolay Karlin, deputy director of Murmansk Trawlfleet, wrote to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and asked him to step into this case, to avoid a “fishery war” in the north Atlantic.
