EU challenges UK’s post-Brexit right to protect puffins

They are processed for fish oil and animal feed, particularly for pigs and farmed salmon.

The RSPB has been campaigning to ban the sandeel fishery for more than 25 years, warning sandeels are already under pressure.

They are sensitive to temperature changes and, as the seas around the UK continue to warm, there is evidence they have been migrating north.

“We’re absolutely disgusted to see the EU challenging this sand eel closure,” said Kirsten Carter, RSPB head of marine policy. “Our seabirds are struggling. We’ve seen a 62% decline across species, a quarter of our puffins lost, our seabirds need these fish to feed their young and survive.”

For its part, the EU says the UK ban does not do enough to balance the needs of marine ecosystems against the well-being of fishing communities.

It says the closure of the UK’s sandeel fishery deprives EU vessels of important “fishing opportunities” and impinges the UK’s “basic commitments” under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

A spokesman for the European fishing industry told the BBC the sandeel fishery is well managed already, with quotas in place and a system of closed areas to protect fish when they breed.

“Danish fishermen have been fishing for sand eel sustainably in the North Sea for decades,” said Espen Sverdrup-Jensen, president of the EU Association of Fish Producers.

“We were challenging the UK ban because there is no scientific basis for this ban. There is no relationship between breeding success of seabirds and the current fishing management regime in the North Sea,” he said.

If the UK and the EU don’t come to an agreement by Thursday, the dispute will go to an arbitration panel which will rule on the issue.

If that panel were to find against the UK and the government fails to comply, Brussels could retaliate with tariffs or other measures.