Spain, home to Europe’s largest fishing fleet, has protested the “disproportionate” decision by the European Commission to shut down industrial tuna fishing in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic. According to the environment ministry the Spanish government is not at all agree to accept the EU ruling to stop tuna fishing by the Spanish seiners.
As per the record Spain has only six tuna seiners and that these have only caught 28.8 percent of their quota, taking just 432 tonnes of the 1,524 authorised by the Commission. According to the European Commission it took the decision to impose the ban for the rest of this year because quotas for 2008 were nearly full. This measure targets fishing by purse seiners, which encircle whole schools of fish and account for 70 percent of all bluefin tuna hauls.
The EU ruling ban the purse seiners from Greece, France, Italy, Cyprus and Malta from fishing bluefin tuna from June 16 while purse seiners from Spain will not be able to cast their nets from June 23. According to Spanish authority it has informed Brussels of the level of its catch on a daily basis. The Spanish ministry informed that the European Commission has used erroneous information and adopted a measure which, at least for the Spanish fleet, is inadmissible.
Environment Minister Elena Espinosa intends to raise the issue of this unilateral decision at EU meeting in Luxembourg June 23. She is contemplating other possible legal actions against the arbitrary measure, including the possibility of taking the issue before the European Court of Justice.
