Óli Jacobsen, an experienced oarsman, is questioning the authority of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Fisheries to allocate additional fishing days to a select group. He argues that such a decision essentially amounts to redistributing fishing days across the board.
Jacobsen owns and operates the trolling boat Líraberg in fishing group 5a and played a significant role in formulating the management plan for fishing regulations back in 2019.
A Leader’s Simple Poem
During the radio news broadcast on the evening of July 15th, the Governor flagged a forthcoming evaluation of the much-debated management plan this autumn, suggesting it could open the door for group 5b to receive those additional fishing days. However, Jacobsen remains skeptical, believing the situation is far more complex than the Governor makes it sound.
The parliamentary resolution referenced by Bárður á Steig Nielsen stemmed from a proposal he co-authored while serving as a member of parliament for the Union Party, alongside Jacob Vestergaard from the People’s Party and Jóhannis Joensen from the Liberal Party.
In that initial proposal, they sought to compel the Parliament to direct the Government to explore the possibility of unilaterally granting more fishing days to group 5b. Yet Parliament hesitated, refusing to allocate extra days without just cause. Instead, a consensus emerged to balance the fishing rights of groups 5a and 5b with their counterparts, utilizing unused fishing days from the previous year—held in a buffer zone—that could be rolled over into the current fishing year.
Jacobsen now fears that the Governor intends to leverage last year’s parliamentary approval to accomplish precisely what the Parliament sought to avoid: granting a specific group additional fishing days. He points out that the unused days being considered for transfer are not from the previous year, but rather from 2024.
For further insights, you can catch more details in a feature on the radio news.
