The bluefin tuna debacle

The failure of EU fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki to introduce a substantial cut in tuna quotas is bad news. It also raises very serious questions about the manner in which we do politics. The stiff opposition by Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta betrays the sad reality that bad politics is widespread.

Too much is at stake. Fisheries and agriculture are not just any economic activity. They are the bedrock of life.

The manner in which we exploit the land and sea strike at the heart of our future survival and well-being. Everything else is secondary.

The great advances in technology have given unprecedented capability to the rich and powerful to plunder our marine resources.

The adage you can but you may not has never been more acute than at present.

If ethical behaviour was ever an option in the past, it is not now. Worldwide, fishing stocks are collapsing and high-tech fishing fleets compete ruthlessly to grab what they can while the going is good.

This is when political responsibility on a global level must come into play. We are being let down badly and the EU has a lot to answer for in the mess we are in.

I believe in the vocation of politics and the positive potential of the EU but the way fisheries have been managed since its inception has been a miserable cocktail of incompetence and outright dishonesty.

The book Great Deception, The Secret History Of The European Union, by Christopher Booker and Richard North, makes distressing reading. One can criticise it for focusing only on the negative aspects and ignoring the beneficial ones. However, their accusations cannot be overlooked and will have to be addressed sooner rather than later if the EU wants to truly represent the interests of their peoples.

Their book also exposes the shabby politics involved in “horse trading” between EU countries at the expense of the national fish stocks and traditional fishing communities.

On a global level, the consequences of such irresponsible behaviour are also portrayed in the film End of the Line, released last year in the UK. This shocking film reveals the collapse of global fisheries and the unbelievable impotence of the politicians who are supposed to protect them.

It shows that bluefin tuna is one of the most endangered species on earth. Yet, within weeks of the film being released on DVD, world delegates at the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora succumbed to lobbying from Japan, a nation that is devouring four-fifths of the world’s bluefin tuna.

Thankfully, public opinion and intolerance for such political behaviour is rightly being provoked. In his outstanding and hard-hitting article Troubled Waters, in the latest issue of the Sunday Circle, Victor Paul Borg drives home with unparalleled clarity and forcefulness the myth that upholding quotas safeguards the livelihood of our fishermen.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true. The root cause of this unacceptable situation is a result of the incestuous relationship between big capitalist interests and politicians. This is further corrupted by a corrosive lobbying culture that, too often, makes a mockery of the democratic process in the EU.

Promoting the narrow short-term interests of the strong and the ultra rich is the antithesis of sound politics. One wonders where are the politicians who profess to be influenced by social justice and the common good.

The integrity of the fishing communities locally and abroad is vitally dependent on an economical model that should empower them to pursue their occupation with the dignity and independence they deserve and which traditionally was theirs.

This is sustainable economics, worthy of man, in the interest of the common good and the key to sustainable fish stocks.

The issue of the tuna debacle is not just a matter of quotas, it is a question of putting an end to predatory economic activity that puts the buccaneering of Blackbeard in the shade.

It is long overdue that politicians advocate and promote the economic values so vigorously promoted by the late E. F. Schumacher: economics as if people really mattered.