According to the EU officials fishermen from several EU member states abuses bluefin tuna in the east Atlantic and Mediterranean. It was in last year when the EU banned trawling for bluefin tuna for vessels flying the flags of Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy and Malta in these waters. The current exploitation of bluefin tuna forced the EU to impose the ban of fishing that came into force next week.
In a statement, EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg approved the ban citing numerous failures of implementation and control that made it impossible for national tuna catches to be accurately monitored. According to the regulators eight spotter planes were working with EU vessels to help them identify bluefin tuna shoals. The ban apply to vessels that use a purse seine, a type of net that floats the top of a long wall of netting on the surface while its bottom is held weighted under the water.
According to official figures, most of the French fleet use purse seine and had busted their quotas. Some Italian purse seine vessels had, overshot their quota by between 100 and 240 percent.
