Closure of fisheries ‘just a beginning’

A European Commission decision announced yesterday (19 September) to close seven EU fisheries is a sign of more closures to come, according to Joe Borg, the European fisheries commissioner.

Borg was speaking to European Voice as the Commission announced the closure of bluefin tuna fisheries in Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain, after reports showing that the 2007 EU catch quota had been exhausted early. Scientists have warned for several years that bluefin is on the verge of extinction.

Borg said that the bluefin action could be applied to other fisheries where quotas are not respected and species are at risk.

"The lesson to learn from the bluefin tuna experience and other experiences is that we need to act," said Borg. "At the end of the day…about 70% of the community stocks are over-fished and some of them significantly over-fished."

He said that the enforcement and control of EU fisheries rules would be a priority in 2008 for the Commission. Despite agreeing science-based catch quotas each year for fisheries species, said Borg, the determination to reduce fishing effort among member states is "sometimes not there". "The problem that we now have is a question of enforcement. This is what we would like to tackle in 2008: that we reform our control legislation and we see to it that member states stick to what is agreed," he said.

Commission officials say that only France and Italy are known to have over-fished bluefin tuna this year, but the EU catch quota set by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is a general one for all seven national fisheries involved. "Given that it is a community quota," said Borg, "if one element of the community overdoes it, it is at the expense of the other element in the community."

The Commission will therefore apply a "payback" mechanism to the ICCAT quota next year, under which countries guilty of over-fishing this year will see the amount that they caught over quota allocated to other member states in 2008.

Borg said a similar process had been adopted before and could be adopted in future even for catch quotas allocated at national rather than community level, such as cod and herring. "We could [also] intervene so that those member states could fish less to the benefit of those who had fished to their full potential."

The Commission has previously demanded the closure of national fisheries known to have exceeded their quotas, but this is the first time member states which had not exhausted their catch quota have been affected.

A Portuguese diplomat said that his country supported Commission efforts to maintain the EU fisheries rules. "If the data collected by the Commission shows that this over-fishing is happening, then the closure is necessary."

Saskia Richartz of Greenpeace, the conservation group, said that she hoped that the Commission’s statement on payback mechanisms would set a precedent. "Regrettably, EU countries that have significantly overfished their quotas in previous years have not been subject to any kind of penalty," she said.

Carol Phua of WWF called the bluefin announcement "an opportunity to change fisheries decisions". "We must now go back to the ICCAT advice and set quotas accordingly," she said.

A European Commission decision announced yesterday (19 September) to close seven EU fisheries is a sign of more closures to come, according to Joe Borg, the European fisheries commissioner.