IUU – up to €500,000 fines

But, reports Peter O’Neill, the clauses to clamp down on transhipment may meet resistance from the industry before the EU regulation is finally voted into effect by the council of fisheries ministers. The industry has already warned that effectively closing down transhipment at sea will hit honest and necessary transhipping operations and not just the criminals (IUU – On the pirate trail, World Fishing May 2008).

The Parliament had hardened up the original EU Commission proposal. Rapporteur and MEP Marie-Hélène Aubert of the EP’s Fisheries’ Committee, claimed half the bluefin tuna and cod catch worldwide was IUU. Her report to the EP said the regime would include an Official Journal blacklist of EU-flagged and non-EU vessels involved in IUU; port state controls would ban entry by third country IUU vessels; a flag state would have to certify fish is legal and no imports would be allowed from countries which did not cooperate with the EU regime.

If one vessel is on the blacklist then the whole fleet of its owner would be inspected in detail. IUU list vessels will get no subsidies and may have to repay earlier subsidies. Fines for individuals may be up to €300,000 and for ‘legal’ entities (e.g. companies) up to €500,000. Member States will have to inspect a significant percentage of landings, transhipments and on-board processing operations by third country fishing vessels each year.

At the heart of this will be a robust catch certificate system to buttress an “effective and comprehensive system of traceability”, Aubert said, adding it has to cope with “fish travelling all around the world between the time it is caught and the final sale to the consumer. Passing through multiple borders, ports and airports offers many opportunities to mix legal and illegal fish, in effect laundering the IUU fish”, she said.