STEVE INSKEEP, Host: Teri Schultz reports from Brussels.</s>TERI SCHULTZ: Ireland, Scotland and Norway are seething, not just because Iceland is benefiting from the mega mackerel migration. The Icelandic government also walked out of talks that set agreed limits among Northern European fishing nations, saying the EU was trying to enforce an unfairly low quota. Then Reykjavik announced it would collect 130,000 tons of mackerel this year, instead of the usual 2,000, despite conservationists' warnings that would strain sustainability.</s>STRUAN STEVENSON: It's scandalous. Absolutely outrageous.</s>TERI SCHULTZ: Scottish member of the European Parliament Struan Stevenson represents many a fisherman and is vice-president of the Parliament's Fisheries Committee. He says he won't allow what he calls a modern-day Viking plundering of the resources shared by the entire EU.</s>STRUAN STEVENSON: Icelanders seem to now want to raid and pillage our fish stocks. The combined population of Iceland and the Faroe Islands, 370,000 people, and yet they're going to catch more mackerel than the 500 million people who live in the EU.</s>TERI SCHULTZ: For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels.
A change in the swimming habits of vast schools of mackerel is causing a diplomatic crisis in Europe. The fish are swimming much farther north this year, and Icelandic fishermen have been scooping them up. That has upset fishing nations that are members of the European Union, and the dispute could harm Iceland's hopes of joining the EU.