Government urged to resist proposal

The tuna industry and fishermen are urging the government to vehemently resist a European Commission proposal to support the international trade of bluefin tuna due to dwindling stocks.

The Commission has decided to provisionally co-sponsor a proposal by Monaco to enlist bluefin tuna as endangered species with the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). If the proposal goes through next March, trade of bluefin tuna will be prohibited.

This follows an internal tug of war between the Commission's environment directorate, headed by Commissioner Stavros Dimas, and the fisheries directorate, led by Maltese Commissioner Joe Borg.

The Commission's proposal is being led by Mr Dimas who favours the move while Dr Borg is resisting, preferring a less drastic approach.

"This dossier is an environmental one within the Commission and Dr Borg is trying to find a balanced compromise so that there is no need to ban the industry," sources close to the fisheries directorate said.

Asked whether Dr Borg had been overruled, the sources said this was not the case as the Commission's proposal was still provisional.

"We need to know what is the position of member states and to wait for the latest scientific information on the situation of bluefin tuna stocks before the Commission finalises its proposal."

In a formal statement issued in Brussels yesterday, the Commission said member states would be consulted on the proposal.

If agreed, the Cites vote in March would result in a ban on international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna. The EU's position will be reviewed before the Cites meeting, taking into account the most recent scientific data and the decisions of the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in November.

In the statement, Dr Borg expressed concern on the situation and again underlined his disagreement with a total ban.

He said it would be very important to see what the latest scientific advice said. He called upon all 48 ICCAT contracting parties to review the multi-year recovery plan for species in the light of the latest scientific recommendations.

"If ICCAT does its role efficiently and we can ensure full compliance, a complete trade ban can be avoided," Dr Borg said.

In Malta, news of the Commission's proposal did not go down well with the fishing community and the industry, which last year exported about €100 million worth of tuna to the Japanese sushi market.

National Fishing Cooperative secretary Ray Bugeja hoped the government opposed the proposal as it would mean the end of fisheries in Malta. "Tuna accounts for two-thirds of all the income of Maltese fishermen and if this is not permitted we might as well not go fishing any longer," he said.

Mr Bugeja contested reports that tuna stocks were in decline and said this was "just what the environmentalists say".

The tuna ranching industry is also up in arms in the face of the proposal.

"This will be a deadly blow to an industry on which a lot of Maltese depend. It accounts for an injection of foreign currency into the economy and the deficit will surely be bigger without the industry," Charles Azzopardi, an owner of tuna farms, said. "I cannot understand what all this hullabaloo over tuna is about," he added.

"We have many rigid controls and what we do is according to the law. We spend more time filling compliance certificates than actually catching the tuna," he said.