EU’s move to crack down on Ireland’s fishing controls could expose fishing firms to legal problems
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The European Union has decided to cancel a derogation for Ireland on how the country’s catch is weighed, a move that could presage a series of legal cases against fishing firms for past practices.
The E.U. wants fish caught in Ireland weighed on the pier rather than in factories, but the fact that some of the factories in the key fishing port of Killybegs are located a mile inland makes an alternative system hard to build without damaging fish in handling, according to Irish Fish Producers Organisation CEO John Ward.
This week members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will take part in a vote that will prove crucial to the future of our seas, and the communities who depend on them.
This vote is to amend the Fisheries Control Regulation, the EU’s system for monitoring, inspection, and enforcement of fishing in EU waters and the EU fishing fleet’s global operations. The Control Regulation is key to enabling fishers, decision-makers, and civil society to count the fish taken from our seas, and to monitor the impact of fishing activities on fragile marine ecosystems.
Any changes to this regulation should improve the sustainability and long-term prospects for our ocean and for fishers. However, if MEPs vote to accept all of the revisions currently proposed by the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries (PECH), they could be endorsing a backward step for EU fisheries policy.
| UPDATED: 14:41, Thu, Feb 18, 2021
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In December, EU ministers gathered in Brussels to establish fishing opportunities in the form of yearly total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas – in what was expected to be the final step towards the legal obligation to end overfishing by 2020. The new Fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius claimed almost all fish landings from the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea will now come from sustainable resources. However, the deal struck in Brussels fails to meet targets recom