"It is hard to understand why the authorities are so determined to harm hundreds of companies in the fishing industry—both large and small—and, by extension, the livelihoods of thousands of people who depend, to a greater or lesser extent, on this sector," Fisheries Iceland said.
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If, as it is in theory, the parliament of a country reflects the sentiment or opinion of its people, we can say that Iceland is divided on its new fishing fee law. After 160 hours of debate, last Monday, the bill submitted by the Icelandic Minister of Industry, Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, was finally passed unchanged from the initial proposal with 34 votes in favor and 23 against.
It was the longest debate in the history of the Icelandic Parliament so far which, according to information from the national broadcaster RUV, ended when Þórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir, the Speaker of the Alþingi (Parliament of Iceland) put an end to it amid protests from the opposition who accused her of acting as a representative of the majority, and not as the Speaker of the entire Parliament.
"The Speaker must have known that this decision would have consequences and that it would affect relations and cast a shadow over this parliamentary term," Hildur Sverrisdóttir, parliamentary group leader of the Independence Party, said in a special statement on behalf of the opposition parties (Centre Party, Independence Party, and Progressive Party) regarding Sveinbjarnardóttir's conduct.
Again according to RUV's information, the parliamentary leader of the Centre Party, Bergþór Ólason, not only harshly criticized the project, which he described as extraordinary, but even foresaw that it could end up in court. "Unfortunately, this is a case so poorly constructed and flawed in many ways that it will have long-term effects. I suspect the minister in charge will soon be in court because of this, and the outcome there is uncertain," he said.
Minister Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, for her part, expressed to RUV her disappointment with the way the opposition had handled the bill during the debate in the Alþingi, but remarked that the most important thing was that the nation stood with the majority.
"This is a big day for us in the governing majority, certainly, but even more so for the Icelandic people, who for decades have witnessed this injustice — namely, how small a share they have received from the profits of this national resource. This injustice has only intensified in recent years, with growing public frustration, especially in light of increasing wealth accumulation by certain individuals within the system," Iceland's Minister of Industry said.
This "justice" in fisheries wealth distribution was also the basis on which her predecessor in office, Bjarkey Olsen Gunnarsdóttir based her proposal when, in September 2024 and the framework of the 14th Icelandic Fisheries, Seafood & Aqua Exhibition (IceFish), the former Icelandic Minister of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries - the portfolio was transferred to the Ministry of Industry following the change of government in December - announced her intention to increase fishing fee on some pelagic.
In her speech, Olsen Gunnarsdóttir said fishing fees benefit the economy in Iceland by promoting equity, sustainability, and responsible resource use. "They ensure that the profits from our shared resources flow to the nation, strengthen public services, and encourage better and more sustainable utilization," she then claimed.
Later, during the November election campaign, some candidates proposed doubling the fishing fee, which at the time was 33% of fishing profits, prompting already then, the Icelandic board of the fishing and aquaculture industry, Radarinn, to respond to the proposal by stating its opposition to the increase, pointing out the negative impact the measure would have on rural communities.
Despite this opposition, in March of this year and in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, the current Minister of Industry submitted to the consultation portal the draft bill to amend the fishing fee law.
"The adjustment of the fishing fee is the government's attempt to respond to the nation's call for fishing companies to pay a fair fee for the right to use the resource," she then stated. "The fee is intended to ensure the nation a direct and visible share in the profits from fishing and to use the increased revenue for urgent projects such as road construction across the country."
At the time, the Ministry said that during the work to review the fishing fees, the conclusion had been that the previous method did not reflect the real value of the catch of commercial stocks, so they were submitting the bill intending to improve it. "This does not constitute changes to the fisheries management system that has been in place in Icelandic waters for the past decades, but rather a necessary correction," the release from the Ministry of Industry read.
The Government then claimed that, during the preparation of the bill, it had become apparent that the fish prices used in the calculation base had been underestimated. "The majority of transactions involving caught fish occur from fishing companies to processing facilities owned by the same entities, and are thus direct transactions. The pricing of these transactions has not reflected market-based pricing," the release said.
To address this imbalance, the Government proposed that the calculation base for cod and haddock would be based on domestic – i.e. Icelandic - fish market prices. For pelagic species - herring, blue whiting, and mackerel - pricing would be based on market prices in Norway during Icelandic fishing seasons.
"There will be no change to the fishing fee calculation method, and the fishing companies will continue to retain 67% of the profit from the fisheries while paying 33% of the profit for the right to use the resource," the Ministry of Industry claimed, while stating that, based on this correction, it was estimated that the adjusted fishing fee could bring in up to an additional ISK 10 billion to the public purse, on top of the ISK 10.2 billion already paid.
As said above, the fishing fee bill was finally approved with 34 votes in favor and 23 against. According to RUV's information, it did so with an amendment proposed by the majority of the Industry Commission establishing that the provisions of the bill will be implemented in stages to address the concerns raised by the Regional Development Institute and the Association of Municipalities of the Fishing Community.
Thus, part A of the amendment, which was approved with 57 votes, established that the proposal of the Director of Finance to the Minister on the fishing fee for the year 2026 for herring, blue whiting, mackerel, cod and haddock should be 85% of the amount of the fee, while for the year 2027, the proposal for those same species will be 95% of that amount.
On Part B, however, the votes were split along party lines, with the government voting 34 in favor and the opposition voting 23 against. This part of the amendment stated that the Minister shall commission the Regional Development Institute to assess the impact of the fishing royalty on the situation of the fishing municipalities and submit a report to the Minister by the end of 2027.
Finally, RUV reported that another amendment, this one presented from the first minority of the Industry Committee by Bergþór Ólason, parliamentary group chair of the Centre Party, was rejected in all its points with 23 votes in favor and 34 against.
Established after the merger of the Federation of Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners and the Federation of Icelandic Fish Processing Plants to safeguard the interests of the fishing sector - including aquaculture companies - as we said earlier about Radarinn, Fisheries Iceland (SFS) has also been against the project from the beginning. So much so that the association did not even wait for the Alþingi vote to show its opposition.
While the Icelandic Parliament voted on the proposal on Monday 14, Fisheries Iceland had already issued a statement on Friday 11. In it, SFS claimed that since the bill was first introduced, numerous stakeholders across the country - including municipalities and companies in the fishing industry, manufacturing, technology, and innovation - have warned about its consequences, without finding any willingness on the part of the government to discuss their concerns.
"It seems the intention was never to engage in a substantive discussion of the matter - let alone a thorough one," the statement read. In SFS's view, the proposal has been driven by unsubstantiated claims that a significant increase in the fishing fee will have no impact on business operations and, it claimed, this is false. "The announced increase is already having negative effects," it said, adding that the methodology proposed in the bill is fundamentally flawed, as the government has repeatedly had to "correct the correction."
"It is hard to understand why the authorities are so determined to harm hundreds of companies in the fishing industry—both large and small—and, by extension, the livelihoods of thousands of people who depend, to a greater or lesser extent, on this sector. There are neither fair nor economic justifications for this," the release continued.
Thus, the Fisheries Iceland statement, foresees bad times ahead for the sector. "Our future prosperity and welfare depend on growing exports, including from the fishing industry. The proposed increase will, unfortunately, significantly undermine the competitiveness of Icelandic fisheries," it continued. SFS also noted that, as a consequence of the new law, it is foreseeable that the likelihood that Icelandic fish will also be increasingly exported unprocessed, "along with the loss of important value creation."
"When the state takes a substantially larger share of company profits, it naturally reduces investment in equipment, technology, and innovation. What lies ahead is a loss for all due to a poorly thought-out increase," the statement of the fishing and processing industry association read.
"The fishing industry does not shy away from paying fair taxes and fees. But when the policy is to take more than 70% of fishing profits through higher fishing fees—on top of other charges—it is inevitable that something will give. For companies facing foreign competition, it is not an option to pass domestic cost increases on through higher product prices. Many companies in the fishing industry therefore, face tough decisions in the coming months," SFS predicted. "One can only hope that the policymakers who set the rules of the game understand the pain those rules may cause."
If, as we said at the beginning, the Parliament is the reflection of the people's will, if we look at the result of the vote in the Alþingi, that 34-23 in a total of 57 votes represents that the proposal not only has the industry against it head-on, but, represented in those 23 votes of the opposition, it would also have 40% of Icelanders against it.
Last November, talking about how aquaculture has driven value creation in the Icelandic Westfjords, we explained that, in Iceland, more than 80% of the people employed in fish farming live in rural areas, and about 80% of the industry's revenues benefit the people who live there. We also said that aquaculture is one of the few industries more widespread in rural areas than in the capital region.
We then added that the same is true for fishing, one of the few industries in Iceland that is more relevant in rural areas than in the capital region. However, unlike aquaculture, whose activity is concentrated in the East and West Fjords, in the case of fishing, there are strong enterprises in every region of the country. In fact, according to Radarinn, no other industry has such an equal distribution of labor income throughout the territory.
Now, let's think about how the population is distributed in Iceland. A quick search on the Internet will reveal that it is mainly concentrated in the region of the capital, Reykjavik, and its surroundings. Approximately 60% of the country's inhabitants live in this metropolitan area, while the rest of the population, about 40%, is distributed over small towns, mainly along the coast, as the inland highlands are practically uninhabitable.
Let us now go back in time again, one year ago, July 2024, when the survey 'Attitudes towards salmon farming in open sea cages' conducted by Gallup at the request of the Iceland Nature Conservation Association (INCA) showed that an overwhelming majority of Icelanders opposed open-net salmon farming. The exact percentage? 65.4%, opposition has never been so high in Gallup polls.
So, 60% live in urban areas versus 40% in rural areas; 60% of the Parliament is in favor of the new fishing fee law versus 40% opposed; and, even more marked, 65% of Icelanders are against aquaculture in the sea versus 35% in favor. After all this data, the first thought that comes to mind is quick and simple: is Iceland divided between those who do not make a living from seafood versus those who do? As said, it is easy to come to that idea; however, the very example of the Gallup poll on sea cage farming belies the simplicity of that conclusion.
In that survey - which had a sample of 1,948 people with a participation rate of 47%, or 915 final respondents, and data weighted so that the sample reflects the population in terms of sex, age and residence - the results revealed that opposition to open net salmon farming is widespread across all age and income groups, among both men and women, in all constituencies, and even among voters of all political parties.
So new questions arise: are fisheries very different from aquaculture, and would the same be true for the new law on fishing fees if Icelanders were asked? This time we don't have a survey to check. It will take time for the data to show whether the law meets the objective of "justice" in fisheries wealth distribution with which it was born, or if, on the contrary, the forecasts of Fisheries Iceland are fulfilled, in which case, who exactly will suffer this predicted "pain"? Will it be the companies? Will it be their workers? And the coastal communities that some intend to benefit and others believe will be harmed? We can only wait for data, which, of course, does not guarantee unanimity of opinion.