Malta is getting ready to oppose a possible EU proposal to ban the international trade of bluefin tuna as it would deal a blow to the lucrative multi-million euro industry and have a devastating effect on the livelihood of hundreds of fishermen.
The European Commission's position had not yet been finalised and could change in the coming weeks, a senior government spokesman said.
But Malta would object to such a proposal because it could not afford to lose a thriving industry with an export value of about €100 million a year, the spokesman said.
"The information we have is that the Commission's proposal is still being formulated and nothing is confirmed yet. Various Commission directorates do not agree with the position adopted by the Environment Directorate to take a bold decision to ban tuna trade," the spokesman said.
Malta was closely following the developments in Brussels and was already formulating its own position through the fisheries department and the planning authority, which is responsible for the international convention on endangered species.
The Commission is internally discussing a proposal for a joint position to be adopted by the EU at a meeting of the General Assembly of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, better known as CITES, to be held in Doha next March.
An internal report drawn up by the Environment Directorate is suggesting that, due to the pressure on bluefin tuna and scientific evidence that the fishery might collapse in a few years, the EU should support a call to include the species in Annex I of the CITES Convention to give it the highest protection.
This would mean fishermen would not be able to sell the fish on the international market, although they would continue to sell it on the home market. This would remove the main cause of the overfishing due to the huge demand for sushi and sashimi in countries such as Japan.
This position has already attracted the open support of France, a major player in the Mediterranean bluefin industry and other EU countries including Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Austria. On the other hand, Malta, Italy and Spain are expected to oppose the proposal.
"We can confirm there is an internal proposal for a total ban but we wish to underline that the Commission has not yet taken a final position. We are still drawing up reports with various other options and the Commission is only expected to come out with its final proposal in autumn," a Commission official said.
"At the end of the day, the Commission's proposal will have to be approved by a majority of member states to become the EU's official position and we are quite far from that," he added.
Bluefin tuna fishing has been a contentious issue in the EU's fishing policy for the past years as scientific evidence showed the fishery was experiencing heavy shortfalls due to overfishing and rogue law enforcement.
Pro-environment NGOs, including Greenpeace and WWF, have been waging a war against the Commission to pile pressure for a total ban of the fishery. However, the Commission has so far taken a more lenient approach, introducing more controls as part of a four-year recovery plan.
Malta has been targeted as one of the major players in the industry by NGOs claiming the island has the largest tuna fattening ranches in the world.
According to Carmel Agius, technical consultant of the Federation of Maltese Aquaculture Producers, the industry in Malta employs about 1,000 full-timers and accounts for 85 per cent of Maltese fisheries exports.