Spain and Ireland Exceed Quotas By 68 Pct - Stocks Under Threatff

Europe’s fish stocks will remain under serious threat of extinction unless EU member states step up their efforts to police the fisheries sector.

This was the stark warning from the European commission on Thursday following the publication of its third annual fisheries scoreboard.

“It is disappointing to see that there is still more to be done to tackle overfishing,” a commission official said.

During the reform of EU fisheries legislation in 2002, member states pledged to tighten controls the fisheries sector to ensure that catches remained within the limits agreed each year.

But the systems put in place to regulate the sector by many member states are woefully inadequate.

Data collected by the member states is vital for assessing whether certain fisheries need to be closed to protect species.

As a result, late or insufficient data can put stocks at serious risk, the commission said.

The scoreboard shows that just three of the 25 member states provided all the necessary data – Denmark, Sweden and the UK.

Three others – Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia – failed to provide any data at all.

The commission is also worried by the extent to which countries are breaking the rules.

While total overfishing levels dropped slightly in 2004 to 1.8 per cent, in some countries – led by Ireland and Spain – quotas were exceeded by as much as 68 per cent.

Just two countries – Belgium and Sweden – gave accurate and timely information on the number if fishing days by national fleets, while perennial transgressor France, along with Ireland and Portugal, failed to provide any data at all.

National governments are better at controlling the number of fishing vessels, with almost all of them meeting their commitments, but data on environmental measures and on funding for fisheries remains patchy.

Brussels has only limited powers to force national governments to meet their commitments.

There is a small team of around 30 inspectors, but its role is limited to overseeing national authorities.

Countries that fail to meet their obligations face the threat of legal action, but this is often slow.

France, for example, was fined €20m last year for failing to comply with EU fisheries rules introduced 14 years earlier.

Forty-nine other cases of overfishing are currently before the European courts.

Conscious of the need to do more to control Europe’s fisheries, national governments agreed in April 2005 to the creation of a new European fisheries agency, which will coordinate inspections across the EU.

The hope is that greater independence in the controlling of fish stocks will help to counter the pressure on some European capitals from their national fisheries industries.

This pressure was never more obvious than last December, when national fisheries ministers met in Brussels to set the fishing quotas for the following 12 months.

Under pressure to protect the economic development of their fishermen, ministers agreed to quota cuts of just 15 per cent, far less than in previous years, and well below the level scientists claim are necessary to ensure sustainable stocks.

And lobbying from French fisherman led to an agreement to reopen anchovy fishing in the Bay of Biscay less than a year after it was banned amid fears of dwindling stocks.

Recommendations that fishing should not start again until at least May were ignored by ministers, who agreed that catches could begin again in March.

This reluctance to cut fishing quotas, despite clear evidence that stocks are dwindling rapidly, is a major concern for environmental groups such as Oceania Europe.

“Our political leaders need to stop playing Russian roulette with the future of our fisheries resources and marine ecosystems,” said Ricardo Aguilar, Oceania Europe’s director of research, last year.

“We do not understand how it is possible that, given the current situation faced by European fisheries after years of non-sustainable management, there are still fisheries ministers who congratulate each other for decisions that push European stocks to collapse.”