Eternal grant of fishing rights in English waters to Belgian fishermen by King Charles II
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Dutch. (December 2020)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 228 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Dutch Wikipedia article at [[:nl:Privilegie der Visscherie]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|nl|Privilegie der Visscherie}} to the talk page.
The Fisheries Privilege is a charter issued by Charles II granting rights to 50 fishermen from Bruges to fish in British coastal waters in perpetuity. It was considered to be a demonstration of gratitude for his exile there from 1656 to 1659. The charter was forgotten for many years but has regained prominence on three occasions. The exact status in law of the agreement remains open to this day.
Having been driven from Britain in 1651 by Oliver Cromwell, Charles initially sought refuge in Paris and the Cologne. However, when he attempted to reach Brussels he was barred by Philip IV of Spain who wanted to avoid a conflict with Cromwell. The two princes secretly agreed to join forces to regain the British throne for Charles and to allow Charles to settle anonymously in Bruges.[1] During his stay in Bruges, Charles was an active member of the civil society of Bruges and became a member of the Saint Joris Guild, through which he made some strategic friendships. When Oliver Cromwell was succeeded by his son Richard, Charles went to Brussels (1659) in order to prepare his return to Britain. In June 1660 he officially regained the throne of England. In 1666 his earlier guide and friend in Bruges, the knight Arrazola de Oñate was named "exceptional" ambassador to Charles by the Spanish king Philip IV with the intention to negotiate a trade treaty. Although the treaty has been lost, the City of Bruges still possesses a charter granting privileges to the fishermen of Bruges to fish in English waters.[2] The charter was never really tested until 1851 due to the numerous conflicts that affected Europe between its signing and the mid nineteenth century.[citation needed]
Conflicts
19th century
In 1849 Britain initiated the first negotiation with the newly founded Kingdom of Belgium about a fishing convention. The aim of the United Kingdom was to keep exclusive fishing rights for its fishermen up to 3 nautical miles from the coast. Belgium sent the former prime minister Sylvain Van de Weyer as special envoy to London with the aim of preserving the status quo. The strength of the Belgian case was reinforced by the head of the Bruges Chamber of Commerce (Mr Sinave) spoke of the existence of the Fisheries Privilege of 1666 in a letter to the Foreign Minister (Constant d'Hoffschmidt). Initially the British government was unaware of the Charter.
The British foreign minister H.J. Temple implicitly recognised the existence of the charter in a letter to the Belgian ambassador.
...the undersigned has the honour to inform M. Van de Weyer that the persons claiming under these Charters must establish their claims in the proper Law Courts of England and Scotland, and that after the Belgian Fishermen will not be allowed to fish on the Coast of the United Kingdom except in so far as any of the parties claiming shall have succeeded in establishing their rights in due course of Laws.
The government of Belgium decided not to pursue the legal route and prioritised a fisheries convention covering all Belgian fishermen (rather than just the fishermen of Bruges).
During the debate in the Belgian senate about the signature of the Convention between Great Britain and Belgium, relative to Fishery (22 March 1852), it was claimed that the treaty was without prejudice to the Fisheries Privilege of 1666;
...(la convention) attribue aux pècheurs des deux Etats le traitement de la nation la plus favorisée pour l'exercise de la pêche sur les còtes de chaque pays, sans préjudice des droits que les pecheurs belges pourraient tirer des chartes du roi Charles II.
In 1963, the issue of the Charter of 1666 came to the fore once more when a certain Victor Depaepe wrote to the Belgian Prime Minister, the British Prime Minister (Harold Macmillan), and the British Queen informing them that he wished to avail himself of the rights granted under the charter of 1666. He informed them that he intended to be arrested at sea so that he could press his claim in the English courts.[2][5] On 8 July his boat "'King Charles the Second" (Z.264) was intercepted by the Royal Navy off the coast of East Sussex near Seaford. The case never came before the courts and according to papers released in 1993 under the 30 year rule it became clear that the British legal team advised the British agriculture minister to avoid a court case because they considered that the Charter was still legally enforceable.[6]
21st century
In 2020 during a Brexit-related meeting of EU ambassadors, Belgium's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the European Union, Willem Van De Voorde, cited the treaty when the issue of the future access of European fishing fleets came up.[7]Flemish Vice minister-president and Minister of Economy and Agriculture Hilde Crevits confirmed during a Radio 1 interview that a legal team is looking into the treaty as a backup plan but that they prefer an agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union.[8]
References and notes
↑ Additional historical context about this period: L. Van AITZEMA, History and stories of issues of state and wars and the united Netherlands, The Hague, 1657-1671, A. DE BEHAULT DE DORNON, Bruges, séjour d'exil des rois d'Angleterre Edouard IV (1471) et Charles II (1656-1658), Bruges, 1931; from the same author, Les privileges octroyeés en 1666 par Charles II, roid d'Angleterre auc pêcheurs de Bruges, Bulletin de l'académie royale d'Archéologie de Belgique, 1909, Part IV, pp. 145 and following.; J. DE BREUCKER, L'extension des limites de pêche et le régime juridisque de la pêche en Mer du Nord, ADSP 1963, n.3, pp. 115-131.
The Cod Wars were a series of 20th-century confrontations between the United Kingdom and Iceland about fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Each of the disputes ended with an Icelandic victory.
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the fisheries policy of the European Union (EU). It sets quotas for which member states are allowed to catch each type of fish, as well as encouraging the fishing industry by various market interventions. In 2004 it had a budget of €931 million, approximately 0.75% of the EU budget.
The Convention respecting fisheries, boundary and the restoration of slaves, also known as the London Convention, Anglo-American Convention of 1818, Convention of 1818, or simply the Treaty of 1818, is an international treaty signed in 1818 between the United States and the United Kingdom. This treaty resolved standing boundary issues between the two nations. The treaty allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country, known to the British and in Canadian history as the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company, and including the southern portion of its sister district New Caledonia.
United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312, aff'd, 520 F.2d 676, commonly known as the Boldt Decision, was a legal case in 1974 heard in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The case re-affirmed the rights of American Indian tribes in the state of Washington to co-manage and continue to harvest salmon and other fish under the terms of various treaties with the U.S. government. The tribes ceded their land to the United States but reserved the right to fish as they always had. This included their traditional locations off the designated reservations.
The Turbot War was an international fishing dispute and bloodless conflict between Canada and Spain and their respective supporters.
The North Sea Fisheries Convention, officially known as the International Convention for regulating the police of the North Sea fisheries outside territorial waters, was a treaty that was signed on May 6, 1882. The inaugural conference was intended to provide a set of regulations for North Sea fisheries. The High Contracting Parties, which included Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and France, entered the convention for a period of five years.
The history of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is one of early settlement by Europeans taking advantage of the rich fishing grounds near Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and is characterized by periods of conflict between the French and British.
The fishing industry in Scotland comprises a significant proportion of the United Kingdom fishing industry. A recent inquiry by the Royal Society of Edinburgh found fishing to be of much greater social, economic and cultural importance to Scotland than it is relative to the rest of the UK. Scotland has just 8.4 per cent of the UK population but lands at its ports over 60 per cent of the total catch in the UK.
Jean-Sylvain Van de Weyer was a Belgian politician who served as the Belgian Minister at the Court of St. James's, effectively the ambassador to the United Kingdom, and briefly, as the prime minister of Belgium, all under King Leopold I.
The Halifax Fisheries Commission was a joint international tribunal created by the United Kingdom and the United States in 1877 under Articles 22 and 23 of the Treaty of Washington (1871). The purpose of the Commission was to determine the amount of compensation, if any, to be paid by the United States to the United Kingdom under Article 18 of the Treaty in return for fishing privileges for Americans in the Atlantic waters off Canada and Newfoundland.
The External relations of the Bailiwick of Jersey are conducted by the External Relations department of the Government of Jersey. Jersey is not an independent state; it is a British Crown dependency, so internationally the United Kingdom is responsible for protecting the island and for consulting Jersey on international trade agreements but it is not a British territory.
The Fisheries Convention or the London Fisheries Convention is an international agreement signed in London in relation to fishing rights across the coastal waters of Western Europe, in particular the fishing rights in the North Sea, in the Skagerrak, in the Kattegat and on the European Atlantic coast. It gives right of full access to the fishing grounds between 6 and 12 nautical miles of the national coastline to the fishing industry of those contracting parties that had already been fishing there in the period 1953–1962.
Events in the year 1834 in Belgium.
Events in the year 1872 in Belgium.
Events in the year 1874 in Belgium.
Fish for finance is a possible trade-off that has been considered by both sides in the trade negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) over their future relationship following Brexit in January 2020. The Brexit withdrawal agreement between the two parties called for an agreement on fisheries to be concluded by June 2020, followed by an agreement on financial services at the end of July, deadlines which were both missed. Both were expected to be part of the final EU–UK trade agreement reached by the end of 2020, the end of the Brexit transition period. The final agreement had some broad outlines for a future fishing deal, primarily gradual EU concessions of fishing quota in UK waters, but was largely silent on finance.
The Pacific Salmon War was a period of heightened tensions between Canada and the United States over the Pacific Salmon catch. It began in 1992 after the first Pacific Salmon Treaty, which had been ratified in 1985, expired, and lasted until a new agreement was signed in 1999. Disagreements were high in 1994, when a transit fee was set on American fishing vessels using the Inside Passage and a ferry was blockaded by fishing boats in Friday Harbor, Washington.
Landlocked Switzerland supports a small commercial fishing industry in its many large lakes. About 200 fishermen nationally ply them in small boats, supplemented by fish farmers who largely raise trout and some carp. The former catch primarily perch and whitefish, with pike, lake trout and Arctic char making up significant portions of the country's 12,000-tonne annual catch. Angling is also popular, while fish processing is marginal, largely limited to making fish oil for the country's drug industry.
In 2021, a dispute erupted between French fishermen and the Government of Jersey about the licensing of French fishing boats to fish in Jersey's territorial waters. Jersey is a British Crown Dependency, and despite not being part of the United Kingdom, the licensing of European Union fishing boats to fish in Jersey's territorial waters has changed after the UK exit from the EU. On 6 May 2021, French fishermen held a protest in the waters off Jersey's main harbour. The UK is responsible for the defence of the Channel Islands and sent two patrol boats to Jersey in response to the fishermen's threats to blockade it. French politicians suggested that Jersey's electricity supply fed by undersea cables from France could be cut off in retaliation for Jersey placing limitations on the extent to which French boats can fish in the island's waters.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
