Researcher on New Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Agreement: “Shows How Important the Cooperation Is for Both Parties”

(highnorthnews.com) - On Tuesday, it became known that Norway and Russia have agreed on next year's fisheries in the Barents Sea, despite the fact that the negotiations have taken place with the Ukraine war and with an increasingly more tense security situation as a backdrop. Geir Hønneland, one of Norway's leading researchers on Norwegian-Russian fisheries cooperation, shares his views on the new agreement with High North News. "The key here is that Norway and Russia have actually agreed on a quota agreement for 2023 and that they have set the total quotas according to the scientific recommendations. They have also stayed within the Joint Norwegian-Russian Commission's own negotiation framework on quota determination for the various fish stocks," says the senior researcher at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI) and continues: "None of them seems to have exploited the tense situation in order to put forward special demands or challenge the other party unnecessarily, like demanding total quotas that exceed the researcher's advice. Or at least, such demands have not come to fruition, and the parties have stayed loyal to the negotiation framework." That is striking in today's situation, Hønneland points out.