It is found that the European governments and enterprises continuing to flout fisheries regulations very often. So the EU Fisheries Council has decided this week that the rule breakers are to be denied access to EU public funds. WWF has welcomed the Control and Enforcement Regulation creates a common system of rules and sanctions to be applied at national level in Europe.
Aaron Mc Loughlin, Head of the European Marine Programme at WWF’s European Policy Office, told that the existing rules have been applied poorly or not at all, disadvantaging fishermen and governments who played by the rules. Illegal fishing continues to be a huge threat to healthy fish stocks and profitable fisheries.
Commenting on last minute objections to the Article 95 sanctions on public funding for rule breaking nations and fishers, WWF wrote to the EU noting that “the fishery sector is the only sector covered by Community law in which funds are still distributed to Member States with perfect impunity, without being conditioned upon compliance with control rules.”
WWF also wrote that there be provisions “setting down countermeasures in suspending and reducing financial aid in cases in which Member States continue to show no intention of stopping persistent and serious infringements.” The nations, led by France, had sought to have serious infringements dealt with by application to the European Court of Justice.
