FISH & FISHING

Alex Smith, the president of the Scottish Fishermens' Federation, said some  skippers were still being forced to risk their lives because of the days at  sea limits.  Mr Smith said: "It seems not to matter what happens to us and the  Commission seems hell bent on restricting effort, but they have gone too  far. The worry is that we get lumbered with the permit scheme and only 15  days a month to catch the fish involved."  Mr Smith said it was already clear that some white fish vessels cannot make  a living while others were managing to make ends meet by heading for Faroe  and in some cases the Rockall grounds.  "If you talk to some of smaller or mid class vessel skippers some of them  are being virtually forced to go to Rockall which is so dangerous for  smaller vessels at this time of year.  "So there are a number of vessels finding it extremely difficult despite  the fact that we have already destroyed half our fleet. The half that is  left is no better off." (Oban Times April 06, 2004 )

ENGLISH fishermen's leaders are considering plans to follow the lead of  Scottish trawlermen in staging a rebellion against the European Union's new  Draconian days-at-sea regime.  The executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations  (NFFO), the English equivalent of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, will  meet on 28 January - four days before the new rules come into force - to  discuss their response to the Scottish white-fish fleet's initiative.  Members of the powerful Scottish White Fish Producers' Association have  already vowed to defy the new 15 days a month fishing limit and fishing  grounds permit system from 1 February. An estimated 120 Scottish white-fish  trawlers and 20 English vessels will be subject to both the new days-at-sea  restrictions and permit rules while most other English demersal trawlers  will be subject to the days-at-sea restrictions. Barrie Deas, the chief  executive of the NFFO, told The Scotsman yesterday that English fishermen  were equally incensed about the new days-at-sea regime which will apply  only to British vessels operating in the North Sea .  He said: "We won't be taking a formal stance until a meeting of our  executive later this month. While we don't have as many vessels which fish  the haddock areas subject to the permit restrictions, we do have a number  of boats which will be similarly affected.  "And we find the conditions associated with the increase in the haddock  quota to be extremely onerous and very difficult to work with.  "These conditions were introduced without any prior discussion with the  industry and they are unreasonably severe and discriminatory. They do not  apply to boats from any other member states, which is completely unacceptable.  "The perversity of the system is that the smaller the mesh you use, the  more days at sea you get," Mr Deas added. (The Scotsman 14 Jan 2004 )

There was outrage in Scotland last week when it emerged how ministers had hidden the details of a fisheries deal struck just before Christmas. By directly discriminating against Scottish fishermen, the deal flouts a central principle of the EU treaty. In a Commons debate next Tuesday, Scottish Nationalist MP Alex Salmond will ask the fisheries minister, Ben Bradshaw, why he allowed the EU to forbid the Scots from fishing vast tracts around the Scottish coast when fishermen of other countries, including several outside the EU, can continue to pull fish worth hundreds of millions of pounds from the same waters.  After negotiations in Brussels that went on for three days and a night, Mr Bradshaw and his Scottish counterpart, Ross Finnie, came out claiming that they had negotiated a good deal for UK fishermen, including a 55 per cent increase in haddock quotas. ( North Sea stocks of haddock are at their highest since 1972.)  It was only after Christmas that the full details emerged. Astonishingly, the agreement includes rules that directly discriminate against Scottish fishermen, in breach of Article 12 of the EU treaty, prohibiting discrimination on grounds of nationality.  On the east coast, complex rules have been introduced which in effect bar the Scottish whitefish fleet from the North Sea fishing grounds where they have traditionally spent 95 per cent of their time, while allowing continued fishing on the same grounds to French, Danish and German vessels. On the north-west coast, the local fleet has learned that, for 11 months after February 1, it will not be allowed into a huge area where it normally works, even though the same UK waters will still be open to fishermen from Norway , Iceland and the Faroes, which are not even EU members. (C Booker Sunday Telegraph 11/01/2004 )

Our £20 million-a-year cockle industry was threatened with closure thanks to a faulty testing procedure relied on by Defra and the Food Standards Agency to implement EC hygiene laws. (see below) Mice injected with cockle-meat were dying, not because the cockles were poisonous but because of toxic solvents used to bind the samples together. Defra and the FSA refused to admit publicly that their discredited tests were to blame; but quietly changed the procedure to eliminate the effect of the solvents. The fishermen have now been permitted to resume their trade. (Sunday Telegraph, C Booker, 28/12/2003 )

The Scottish fisheries minister, Ross Finnie, appears on TV boasting about the achievement of getting an increase in the haddock and prawn quota for British vessels, yet the French are allowed a 5 per cent by-catch of cod when coley fishing; rich pickings, considering the "5 per cent" could be as much as 5,000kg per landing per boat. This is no achievement by Mr Finnie - more a failure to establish our own management of catches in our own waters. While the negotiations were going on regarding the new European Union constitution, ten new EU agencies have been formed. Two will have an effect on the fishing industry. The Common Fisheries Control Agency is to be based in Vigo , in Spain , renowned for flouting quotas and rules. Its enforcement role is a joke, yet the United Kingdom will have to provide fishery protection vessels which will be under the control of Spanish officials. The Maritime Safety Agency is to be based in Lisbon . It will enforce standards for safety at sea and strengthen existing port state control measures. What is wrong with our repre-sentatives in Brussels ? Have they no interest in what happens to our industries and institutions? It is high time we got out of the EU. Let the UK be responsible for running and managing its own industries and maintaining maritime safety standards which are recognised worldwide. (Letter to The Scotsman by John Noble, 24 Dec 2003 )

The Scottish fishing industry reacted with fury last night to a new  European deal that UK ministers have hailed as a negotiating triumph.  The agreement includes an increase in haddock quotas of more than 50%, but  there has been no increase in the number of days fishermen are allowed to  go to sea, prompting some to label the deal a travesty and a black day for  the industry. Fraserburgh-based Trevor Summers, skipper of the Pendarus,  summed up the feelings of most skippers when he said the talks, which also  produced a complicated zoning system, had been a shambles.  "How can we be expected to take in more haddock when we don't have the time  at sea to do it in," he said. (Independent 20 December 2003 )

 The European Union is failing to stop European fishermen plundering the waters of poor developing states, a leading green group said on Thursday.  EU fisheries ministers are reviewing the cash-for-fishing deals signed with mostly African coastal states. Such agreements are vital for the EU fishing industry as fish stocks collapse in European waters.  WWF, long a critic of the deals for letting EU trawlers exploit the waters of poor countries, fears the new rules will not differ much from the existing ones -- with no major effort to halt illegal fishing.  "Too many boats chasing too few fish, there's not enough fish left in European waters so our boats go to the waters of developing states to overfish there," said Espen Nordberg, fisheries policy officer at WWF Denmark. ( BRUSSELS Reuters, Oct 23, 2003 )   

VIOLENCE has broken out between Cornish fishermen and government inspectors enforcing European quotas that crews say rob them of two thirds of their income. Last week an official vehicle was vandalised and its windscreen smashed during a routine inspection of a catch at Newlyn, near Penzance . Tensions have been rising for several weeks because of complaints about 2003 quotas, which fishermen claim have made them throw back £10 million worth of fish this year. The quota for monkfish was cut by 15 per cent in December on a “precautionary principle” by the European Commission. Fishermen claim that just as many monkfish are being caught in their nets, but many have had to be thrown back dead or dying into the sea. Rick Smith, the leader of Brixham Trawler Agents, said: “There’s so much monkfish out there it could be one of the best years on record for monkfish catches, but much is being dumped back on the seabed.” Cod quotas were cut by 20 per cent, a reduction of 65 per cent over five years. In Newlyn, where 600 people rely on the fishing industry for their livelihoods, anger over the quotas has flared into violence. Paul Trebilcock, a fishermen’s leader, said: “I don’t know who smashed the official’s windscreen but it is an alarming indicator of the depth of feeling down here. He was parked next to the market and his ministry vehicle was smashed up while he was inspecting a docked flotilla.” Mr Trebilcock, the chief executive of the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation, said that officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had no more faith in the quota system than the fishermen but were enforcing it nonetheless. He said: “The fishermen come off their boats after seven days at sea. By the time they dock they’ve already thrown back a big, profitable catch. The Defra staff are all fresh-faced university graduates with clipboards and attitude problems who treat us like criminals. The fishermen and the Defra scientists know the EU quotas are inaccurate and unnecessary and it is too much for the fishermen to bear after they’ve been forced to slash their own wages.” The fishermen claim that their average weekly income has been cut from £700 to £300 as a result of the quotas. Elizabeth Stevenson, a partner in the long-established family fishing firm of W. Stevenson and Son, said: “There is nothing more demoralising than telling a man over the satellite system to throw back fish. It’s like ordering them to throw pound coins overboard. It’s just stupid. The fish are there; the future of the fishing industry is there. It’s all being destroyed for the sake of red tape.” Fishermen claim that the build-up of dumped fish on the seabed is now so bad that they are being caught up in their nets. One Cornwall county councillor is planning to dump the rotting catch snagged in her nets at Westminster . Sheryll Murray, who owns the 33ft Millbrook trawler Boy Andrew with her husband, Neil, said: “It’s time for us to take rotting fish to the House of Commons, where politicians can judge who the criminals truly are. Is it fishermen who catch that fish as part of a mixed catch, or the EU forcing them to dump it? ” The crew of the Newlyn fishing boat Ben Loyal filmed themselves throwing good fish back into the sea. They plan to send it to Franz Fischler, the EU Fisheries Commissioner, and Ben Bradshaw, the Minister for Europe . Jon Turtle, who helped to make the film, said: “We cannot stop fishing because no one supports us financially for our losses. We are forced to fish harder to try to make up that loss, and even more fish are dumped.” A spokeswoman for Defra said: “Our fisheries inspectors have a difficult task. They are required by Community law to apply the provisions of the Common Fisheries Policy. Sometimes this gives rise to tension between the industry and the Sea Fisheries Inspectorate, particularly when fishermen have to discard fish.” She said that although Defra scientists had found that “there does seem to be a greater abundance of monkfish”, a quota change was unlikely before next year. (The Times August 16, 2003 )

Mr. Christensen is back, this time as a fiery advocate for an ailing sea and its mournful fishermen. He heads the Danish Society for a Living Sea, a Baltic-wide network of fishermen who are speaking out, frustrated by the region's dwindling fish stocks, the continuing pollution, and worst of all, the near collapse of cod, an ancient staple. The group wants the European Union to rethink its fisheries policies. Subsidies worth billions of dollars a year have worsened depletion by building an oversize fishing fleet, they argue. Most immediately, the group wants a ban on all "brutal fishing methods," specifically, widespread bottom trawling that, like strip-mining, rips up the life-giving textures of the sea floor. Mr. Christensen's ideas are by no means universally applauded, certainly not by the large-scale-fishing industry, but they are being increasingly countenanced as the fishing crisis in the Baltic intensifies. As in other European seas, the commercial fish stock here is at a record low. "I never saw anything like it," said Mr. Christensen, who is 52. "Boats return half empty. Shipyards are laying off people. Fishermen are scared, they want a public debate, they need to talk." There is a worldwide fishing crisis, he notes, and new studies show that 90 percent of large predatory fish have disappeared in the past 50 years because of industrial-scale vessels that are chasing fish via satellites. He and his group draw a distinction between the fishing industry and fishermen. "And who is talking or listening to real fishermen?" he asked. "Government experts? Parliaments? The seafood industry? No." Around the Baltic, shared by nine nations, ordinary fishermen barely have a voice, he said, while the seafood industry can afford aggressive lobbies. "Fishermen talk a lot among themselves, they get very angry. Their problem is, once they are on land, they are easily intimidated. " Excessive quotas have led cod stocks to near collapse in the North, Irish and Baltic seas. In 1985, the Baltic yielded 800,000 tons of cod. In 2000, the catch was less than one-tenth. This year, catching cod is banned in the Western Baltic until September. Elliott Norse, a marine biologist who, like Mr. Christensen, attended a recent Baltic Sea conference here, warned that once the sea-floor habitat was destroyed, dwindled fish stocks would inevitably take much longer to recover. "The sea floor has structure, sometimes just a few inches high, and the more structure, the richer the species," Mr. Norse said. "Bottom trawling is analogous to clear-cutting the forest." Mr. Christensen's group is appealing to consumers and has created a "gentle fishery" label, used at fish shops and markets. Some 30 vessels have joined the label so far. The group also advocates "more passive, less brutal" gear like traps, hooks and nets that operate at middle depths, arguing that this gear causes less damage and less waste of creatures that are thrown back, often lifeless. (New York Times July 26, 2003 )

At the end of its formal investigation into two aid schemes involving fish  quota purchase and lease in the United Kingdom , the European Commission has  decided that these schemes are not compatible with common market rules. The  quotas, acquired under these schemes set up by the Orkney and Shetland  Islands Councils, are leased to local fishermen on preferential terms. As  the aid concerned is an operational aid which benefits the fishermen  concerned and as such is not allowed under Community rules, it must be  brought to an end. The Commission Decision does not require the recovery of  the aid from which fishermen have already benefited. The schemes have  attracted criticisms from parties in the UK fisheries sector who believe  that they distort competition by providing an unfair advantage to the  Orkney and Shetland fishermen and that their creation has triggered an  increase in the price of fish quotas in the UK.  The objective of these schemes is to ringfence (keep in the community  concerned) track records giving entitlements to annual fish quotas for the  benefit of the local fleets. They were set up because local fishermen were  finding it difficult to obtain financial backing to purchase quotas. These  quota schemes enable the fishermen concerned to fish against quotas to  which they would otherwise not have had access. The aid backing the schemes  constitutes therefore an operational aid. Background:  In the UK , national quotas are allocated on the basis of track records  which reflect the quantities of fish caught by each vessel over the period  1994 to 1996. Under certain conditions, these track records can be sold  independently from the vessels to which they have been allocated. A de  facto market has developed in these track records and it is in this context  that the Shetland and Orkney Islands Councils set up schemes to acquire  track records enabling the leasing of the corresponding quotas to local  vessels. (Brussels Europa, 3 June 2003)  Council convenor Sandy Cluness, who is also chairman of Shetland Leasing and Property, insisted the development trust investment was not using public money and therefore the state aid regulations did not apply. He said: "European rules are challenged every day and when we get the full report, then we will get our lawyers on to it and we will fight them every inch of the way. "This is the kind of thing we get from Europe all the time. They are trying to reduce our fishing industry to nil, and at the same time they want to stop us using our own funds to help. "These funds are not from the local authority at all, they are private funds which have been used to help keep the local fishing industry alive." The cash held by SLAP and the development trust comes from the Shetland Charitable Trust, which has been funded from oil revenues brought in from Sullom Voe oil terminal. (Fishing Monthly : June 04, 2003 )  

On June 4th 2003 , Austin Mitchell MP for Great Grimsby will ask leave to introduce this Fishery Limits Amendment Bill. This will allow the British Government to manage and control British Fishing waters to the 200 mile limit, or the median line. My Bill says Mr Mitchell, is a simple measure to ensure that the European Communities Act of 1972 which makes EU law superior to British, will not apply to the Fishery Limits Act of 1976, which extended British waters to the 200 mile limit Other countries have used this extension of limits to build up their own fishing industries in their own waters, and to provide effective conservation, management and stock rebuilding. Only the national state can do this because it alone has the interest in protecting its fish stocks, to pass them on to future generations of its own fishermen. Alone amongst the major fishing nations, Britain cannot do this. Edward Heath accepted a Common Fisheries Policy (C.F.P.), cobbled together in anticipation of Britain s Common Market entry, to give the rest of Europe full access to our rich fishing grounds on the principle of equal access to a common resource . Hardly legal under the treaty, this was nevertheless accepted by Heath in his desperation to get into the Market. The C.F.P. is a political policy not a conservation policy. Under it, an increasing number of states, most recently Spain but with others to come, have been given access, quotas and catches in our waters. This has lead to severe over-fishing to the point where cod and other types of fish are now in serious danger of extinction. Drastic catch limits have been imposed on the British fish industry as a result. The CFP can t work, isn t working and should be ended. My bill gives government the power to do just that, to begin the task of providing for effective conservation, rebuilding the stocks and coming to reciprocal arrangements and catch exchanges with other fishing nations such as Iceland , Norway , Denmark and Ireland . At the very least this will strengthen governments bargaining position. At best it will end the farce and make us a great fishing nation once again. I want Parliament to do justice to the British fishing Industry and compensate it for the years of neglect, by saving Britain's fish and Britain's fishing. ( Friday 30th May, 2003 )  

  Africa's bushmeat trade, which is forcing several rare species towards extinction, is fuelled by European Union policy, a leading British scientist says.   The accusation comes from Professor John Lawton, who heads the UK 's Natural Environment Research Council.  He says European and other foreign fleets are emptying the seas off West Africa .  The consequence is hungry people turning from the sea to the forests to find protein.   Professor Lawton told BBC News Online: "The evidence is beginning to stack up that artisanal fishing off the coast of countries like Senegal is collapsing, it's finding virtually nothing to catch.   "The European boats are active there - they're catching fish further offshore and taking them out of the system, so there's nothing left for the local boats.   Reforms begun   "The European Union has exported its excess fishing capacity to West Africa , and indirectly it's fuelling the bushmeat trade, which is devastating the forests - together with South Korea and Japan ."   Campaigners estimate about a million tonnes of meat leave equatorial Africa every year, putting unsustainable pressure on apes and other endangered species (BBC News Online 29/5/03) 

Enlargement is worth something for the EU. At least this became clear to Norway after negotiations in Brussels for a renewed EEA Agreement came close to finishing on Tuesday evening. The three EFTA countries – Norway , Iceland and Liechtenstein – must pay ten times more, 230 million euro per year for access to the markets in the enlarged European Union. Norway will pay 97% of the money. Instead of low customs tariffs on fish, the deal offers quotas for the selling of fish. "This is an expensive deal for Norway . It gives us a poorer deal on fish and at the same time it costs us much more money," said the leader of the Centre Party Åslaug Haga in a comment to Norwegian daily Nationen. Up until now, Norway has been selling fish to Eastern European countries without customs or quotas. In 2001 the Norwegians sold herring to Poland for some half a billion crowns. The Baltic countries also consume large quantities of fish from Norway . Norwegian foreign minister Jan Petersen informed members of the EEA-committee in the Norwegian Parliament, Stortinget, of the negotiations. Member of the Parliament´s EEA committee from the leftist SV party, Bjørn Jacobsen however said he was unhappy with the deal in sight. " Norway is selling fish to the EU for 1,6- 1,7 billion crowns per year. This is around the same price as Norway will now have to pay to secure access to the markets for this fish," he said to Nationen. (EUobserver.com 09.04.2003) http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?aid=10876&sid=15

Cornish fishermen are up in arms over what seems to be a flagrant example of double standards, following draconian restrictions on cod-fishing imposed by Brussels to conserve supposedly vanishing cod stocks.  The seas around Cornwall are swarming with more cod than fishermen can remember for 30 years. Whenever a net is put down it comes up brimming with them. But so minuscule are their quotas that Cornish boats must dump hundreds of tonnes of cod dead back into the sea.  They can do nothing else because of the "reign of terror" by which the regulations are being enforced. In the words of the local fishermen's leader, Phil Trebilcock, the district's senior fisheries official, Colin George, backed by the fisheries minister, Elliot Morley, has turned Newlyn into "a police state".  Twelve boats have already had their licences suspended. When another skipper, Jonathan Turtle, suggested that a catch of £3,000-worth of cod that he and his crew could not avoid netting should be sold for Comic Relief, he was told that they must be chucked back.  What enrages the Newlyn fishermen even more, however, is the sight of a dozen French trawlers "filling their boots" with cod in the same Cornish waters and taking them back home without fear of reprisal, where they are openly advertised for sale. (Sunday Telegraph – C Booker 23/3/03 )

Irish fishing industry leaders were meeting a minister to review developments over European Union plans to give foreign trawlers greater access to Ireland's fishing grounds. The discussions with Irish marine minister Dermot Ahern were going ahead against a background of protests by the Irish fishermen. They took action to blockade a number of ports in the south west of Ireland during the Christmas and New Year holiday period. At the heart of the trawlermen's anger is the 'Irish Box' fishing area, which, under the terms of the EU Fisheries Commission plan, is now open to foreign vessels. Frank Doyle, spokesman for Irish Fishermen's Organisation, said there was a strong case to be made against the proposals, which formally came into effect at the start of the year. He maintained yesterday that the government's legal advisers believed that the previous position on the Irish Box, which restricted foreign entry to within 50kms of Ireland's coastline, was still in place. Mr Doyle said: "Today will be a matter of trying to determine where we are on this issue. We are seeking clarity and we are seeking to protect the Irish Box." Also down for discussion at yesterday's meeting were other EU proposals focusing on a limitation of days spent at sea by fishermen, a factor seen as having a potentially major impact on Irish trawlers. (Irish News Round-Up http://irlnet.com/rmlist 1-3 January, 2003 )

French fishermen will be exempted from the drastic quota cuts that northern fishermen now face. French President, Jacques Chirac, has secured an exemption for key French fishing grounds from crushing new restrictions on cod fishing that should come into effect on 1 February, reports the Scotsman. The exclusion of the eastern Channel area, means that France's largest fishing port, Boulogne-sur-Mer, will not be subject to the reduction of days at sea and 45% quota cuts that were thrashed out during marathon fisheries negotiations in Brussels directly before Christmas. (EUobserver.com 9/1/03)

The environmental crisis in the North Sea is man-made. It is a classic stratagem of the European Commission to exploit such a crisis in the cause of closer European integration - this is known as a beneficial crisis. When the Commission decides that fish stocks have recovered, the only certainty is that the quotas will, under the equal access provisions, go not to British fishermen, but to Spaniards and Poles. The 30,000 British workers whose jobs will disappear are expendable in the cause of further European integration. (Letter Daily Telegraph 28/12/02)

The Spanish have about half the EU fishing fleet, much is based in Galicia recently damaged by the oil spill. Spain is fighting the EU conservation proposals for the North Sea cod fishery, which is on the verge of collapse after years of mismanagement by the EU. (BBC Farming Programme 19/12/02)

MEPs will approve a deal whereby Brussels buys up fishing rights in Senegal and Angola for the benefit, chiefly, of Spanish trawlermen. These are just the latest in a series of accords intended to allow Southern European skippers, who have exhausted their own stocks, to plunder the warm waters off Africa. They follow similar treaties with Morocco, Mauritius and Namibia. It is bad enough that our taxes should be going, in effect, to subsidise the Spanish fishing industry. But the real victims are the local African fishermen, who stand to lose their livelihoods entirely. Some, indeed, have lost their lives: there have been several incidents where small local vessels have been run down by European industrial trawlers. It is worth standing back and asking why Europe's fishing fleets are constantly slavering for new waters. Why can they not subsist in their own seas, as their fathers did? There is a simple three-word answer to that question: Common Fisheries Policy. Since 1973, the EU's North Sea waters - the source of most of its fish - have been declared a "common resource". As any conservative will tell you, that which no one owns, no one will care for. No skipper is going to tie up his boat for the sake of conservation if he knows that foreign vessels are simultaneously at loose in the same waters. So, for thirty years, we have been hoovering up what ought to have been a renewable resource. Britain has been the big loser. Sixty-five per cent of the fish covered by the CFP fall within our territorial waters; yet, under the EU's quota system, we are allocated a share of just 28 per cent by volume, or 18 per cent by value. (December 04, 2002 Daniel Hannan MEP's Conservative Euro-Briefing )

AN ARTICLE in the Sunday Times mentioned an idea for a Euro Navy to patrol the EU's fishing grounds (formerly British grounds) to " keep out foreign vessels " The ships would come from Britain, Ireland,Spain and Portugal and in the UK's case would consist of four patrol boats and three minehunters which would swop the White Ensign for the Gold Stars on Blue of the EU. European politicians see this fishery protection fleet as a foot in the door for a EU Navy. (Navy News December 2002)

U.S. Atlantic Coast fishermen urged the Bush administration to pressure the European Union to stop overfishing bluefin tuna and white marlin by threatening to impose up to $100 million in sanctions. "These fish are the driving force behind a multibillion (U.S.) industry," Herb Moore, director of government affairs for the Recreational Fishing Alliance, told reporters. "We can't manage the stocks of these species alone." The fishing group - backed by the state of Maryland, boat manufacturers and the World Wildlife Fund - accused the European Union of routinely ignoring catch limits and quotas set by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas for the two species of fish. Because bluefin tuna and white marlin are highly migratory species, overfishing in European waters depletes stocks on the U.S. side as well, Recreational Fishing Alliance executive director James Donofrio said. Commission scientists recommend that the annual limit for bluefin tuna be limited to 25,000 metric tons. However, Spain and Portugal routinely exceed their allocations by 10,000 to 20,000 metric tons, Donofrio said. Many of those are juvenile fish, which have not yet reproduced, he said. Huge subsidies that flow from Germany and other EU members states to support the Spanish and Portuguese fishing industries are the principal cause of the problem, Grasso said. (Reuters News Service 18/10/2002)

The EU has banned the import of pure wild crayfish from China. It found harmful chemicals in farmed crayfish so it banned all imports even though the wild form is uncontaminated. The high-class sandwich chain Pret A Porter is trying to get the ban lifted; it sells 2.6million crayfish sandwiches a year. (Sunday Telegraph 1/9/02) This is a re-run of the Bombay Duck saga where the EU banned a healthy product. It took four years to get that decision reversed, see the Bombay Duck web site for the full story – Ed.

The European commission has drawn up plans for a 'Euro-navy' to patrol the coastlines of the 15 member states. The ships would sail uner an EU ensign to police commercial fishing inside European waters and keep out foreign vessels...Britain is expected to assign seven ships -- four offshore patrol vessels and three mine-hunters -- to the euro-fleet at a cost of about £6m a year.' (28/7/02 Sunday Times)

When a Shetland fishing boat, the Defiant, was last month boarded by an official of the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency (SFPA), he angrily observed that its boarding ladder was in breach of EU regulations, because it was made of synthetic rope with plastic rungs instead of manila and hardwood. The reason for the switch to plastic was that the Defiant's owner, Magnie Stewart, had five times seen his manila rope ladders rotting away and their wooden rungs becoming dangerously covered with slime, and wanted to save his crew's lives. "If someone fell off that ladder, they would be sucked into the Kort nozzle around the propellor and come out in a hundred pieces," he says. The Defiant's acting skipper, Gordon Irvine, has now had a letter from this official (name illegible and the SFPA refuses to reveal it to me), warning him that unless the ladder is replaced he will face criminal proceedings and a fine of up to £5,000. Commission Regulation 1382/87 on boarding ladders, drawn up by a Brussels official who had probably never been on a fishing boat, lays down that steps on ladders must be "not less than 480mm long, 115mm wide and 23mm in thickness", must be "equally spaced not less than 300mm or more than 380mm apart" and must be "hardwood or other material of equivalent properties". The side-ropes of the ladder "shall consist of two uncovered manila or equivalent ropes not less than 60mm in circumference". The regulation, which goes on for three pages in similar demented vein, does not actually specify that the ladders can only be of manila and hardwood; nor does it take into account the possibility that manila may rot away and deposit a fisherman, or even a fisheries inspector, into the ship's screw. But not to put men's lives at risk is seemingly now a criminal offence worthy of a £5,000 fine. (Sunday Telegraph, Chris Bookers Notebook July 28 2002 )

After months of speculation, the European Commission has at last revealed its masterplan for the future of European fishing. Because this is hidden away in seven separate documents, all of which must be read together, it has so far escaped publicity. But the results are more startling than anyone predicted. The final version of the Common Fisheries Policy represents a major coup by the Commission. Brussels officials plan to take the contentious fishing issue out of politicians' hands and fisheries will be run by them alone. There will be little future for what remains of Britain's fishing fleet. Within a few years, it seems, the only serious part that Britain will play in European fishing policy will be to provide Royal Navy ships, acting under the direct orders of foreign officials, to enforce Brussels regulations in the seas round our shores from which most British fishermen will be excluded. The plan's ingenuity in using, for the first time, environmental powers already ceded by member states in various treaties, means that there is virtually nothing that national governments can now do to stop the Commission making its final power-grab. Brussels has come up with a wholly new way to run Europe's fisheries, which answers almost every criticism levelled at the CFP as it became obvious that its transitional phase, due to end next December, had created an ecological catastrophe. This was made inevitable by the forced discarding of millions of tons of fish under the system of national quotas and the fact that, under EU rules, too many fishermen from different countries were claiming rights of "equal access" to the fast-dwindling stocks. The final straw was the need to accommodate Spain's vast fleet, which is three-quarters the size of all other EU fleets put together. By using environmental powers ceded under the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties, the Commission will take fishing out of the political arena altogether. A new Brussels management committee, acting on scientific advice, will be able to dictate through an individual licensing system precisely how each fisherman will be allowed to fish. Historic fishing rights, such as Britain's, will be overruled by a treaty obligation that all EU policies must be environmentally 'sustainable'. New technical measures, including a ban on discards, will be used to impose a far more effective conservation policy. National governments will be virtually excluded. The Commission will liaise directly with "regional advisory committees", which, in a huge leap towards political integration, must include representatives of more than one country. The rules will be enforced by nationally owned protection verssels that must act under the orders of officials who come from another country. The new truly "European" policy offers almost everything conservationists could want, but at a price. A precondition for the new regime will be further massive reductions in northern European fleets. Denmark will be required to cut its fleet tonnage by 27 per cent, Sweden by 50 per cent, Britain by 23 per cent - although this will require the scrapping of many more British boats since there are more of them. Spain escapes with a cut of less than 10 per cent, Italy seven per cent, Greece just two per cent. However, this will not be the end of it, because it may be possible for fishermen to buy and sell their licences. Those from countries such as Spain, who in recent years have received massive EU subsidies, may be able to offer sums that British fishermen, already hard-pressed by the banks, will find it hard to refuse. We thus begin to see the final account for that decision by Edward Heath in 1973 to hand over waters that contain four-fifths of Europe's fish stocks. Within a few years it is likely that we will be left with only a very small fleet, with rights to catch anything round our shores entirely controlled by Brussels. Our chief remaining interest will be that we will be expected to provide and pay for a fleet of fisheries protection vessels, to enforce Brussels policies under Brussels direction. Any Royal Navy ships still involved will be required to have non-British officials on board telling them what to do. British ministers will also have one further duty. Each time a new country joins the EU, they will have to sign a "designation order" giving its fishing vessels rights of access to the waters round our shores out to 200 miles, since under international law these are still British. (Sunday Telegraph Christopher Booker's notebook Filed: 23/06/2002)

MEPs believe that fisheries director-general Steffen Smidt was sacked in return for Spain agreeing to drop its demand for the new European Food Safety Authority to be sited in Barcelona, reports the European-Voice. Irish MEP Patricia McKenna, the Green Party's coordinator on the fisheries committee, said: "The word is that Prodi told Aznar he would give him Smidt's head on a plate in return for Aznar agreeing to drop Spain's demand for hosting the food agency in Barcelona." (EUobserver.com 17/5/02) Commissioner Neil Kinnock's department insisted that Smidt's move was "part of a long-planned programme of staff re-assignments". But this story immediately fell apart. All the other staff on the "long-planned programme" had been advised of their moves weeks before, and given new assignments. Smidt was sacked unceremoniously on 24 hours notice. (R Helmer MEP newsletter 3/6/02)

The Common Fisheries Policy, a 30-year environmental catastrophe that has destroyed fish stocks exempts the Mediterranean and Baltic seas while opening up the great prize of British and Irish waters to EU fleets. (Daily Telegraph London 23 03 02)

 "The way that EU countries and vessels are behaving during fishing off the coasts of Africa is fully comparable with the behaviour of the colonial powers during the nineteenth century. It is an outrageous kind of economic imperialism," says British EU-critical MEP Nigel Paul Farage, according to Danish paper Information. The background is clashes between big fisheries' factory vessels from the EU-countries and local African fishermen in small, open boats. According to a report about improving the safety of fishermen in Senegal, made by Peter Rayment, every year hundreds of fishermen from Senegal, Mauritania and other West African countries lose their lives, because they are hit or overturned by the waves from passing fisheries factories, especially from Spain and Portugal. "I have encountered several fishermen's families in Senegal who have lost fathers or sons because their vessels have been run into by industrial vessels from the EU. Survivors tell about crews on the industrial vessels standing looking down at the fishermen lying in the water, struggling for their lives, while their vessel just continued its course," says Peter Rayment, according to Information. The big factory vessels from EU countries are fishing in African waters because of agreements made between the EU and the countries along the coasts of Africa, according to Information. These agreements have, according to a series of reports, lead to over-fishing and put thousands of African fishermen out of work. This state of affairs has moved two EU-critical MEPs, Nigel Farage (UKIP) and Jens Okking (June Movement), to start a campaign for having a parliamentary committee in the EU. According to Nigel Farage, the EU has since 1993 spent at least one and a half billion euro on fisheries agreements with third countries, primarily in Africa and Latin America. And, according to a Commission report from 1999, it is not possible to account for the use made of the vast sums paid for fisheries agreements, writes Informatíon. The EU fisheries vessels receive EU subsidies for their activities, and it is feared that the expected reductions of EU fishing quotas will aggravate the problems of African fishermen. Julian Scola from the WWF calls the EU fisheries policy absurd and says, according to Informatíon: "It is offering unfair competition to local fishermen in Africa, because of the efficiency of the EU vessels and also because the EU vessels receive subsidies from the EU." (EUobserver.com 21/3/02)

SECRET documents revealed last week under the 30-year rule complete the story of the most cynical smash-and-grab raid in the history of the European Union. It was this which led the prime minister of the day, Edward Heath, to give away the world's richest fishing waters as the price he was prepared to pay to fulfil his dream of taking Britain into the Common Market in January 1973. The new papers that have just been released, covering the year 1971, show that Heath's ministers did belatedly wake up to the catastrophe that this would prove for both fish stocks and Britain's fishing industry. But, when they realised that they had been outwitted, they were prepared to lie openly to Parliament to hide what they had done. As was disclosed by the first batch of Foreign Office papers released last year, this strange story began in June 1970, when Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway were about to apply for membership of the Common Market. Realising these four countries would control fishing waters containing more than 90 per cent of Europe's fish, the six original members and the European Commission laid an ambush by agreeing in principle, just hours before the applications arrived, that all fish in western European waters should be regarded as "a common European resource". The 1970 documents also revealed that the Heath government decided not to challenge the new "Common Fisheries Policy" for fear of prejudicing the negotiations. By the end of 1970, as fishermen and MPs began to question what was going on, the Government's official line was to give public reassurance that Britain had "reserved its position" on the CFP and would "take proper account of the interests" of the fishermen, while privately conceding, as one official put it, that "in the wider UK context, they must be regarded as expendable". However behind the scenes Con O'Neill, the senior civil servant in charge of the negotiations, was by June sufficiently concerned to focus on the problem in a long memo, in which he acknowledged that the demand for "equal access" was "extreme", that Britain's fishing industry, then the largest in Europe, would be endangered, and that our "carefully conserved" coastal waters would be put at risk from the kind of over-fishing which had rendered all-but-barren the waters off Holland, Belgium and France. However time was running out. Heath realised that, unless the treaty was signed as planned in January 1972, he would lose his date of January 1, 1973 for Britain's entry. Athough this is not recorded in the files, he finally put it to his closest colleagues, as I have been informed by one who was present, that there were only 22,000 British fishermen, and that they were "politically insignificant". The die was cast. In December, Rippon privately agreed in Brussels to accept the surrender of all Britain's fishing waters, up to the beaches, in return for a face-saving 10-year "derogation" under which only British vessels would be permitted to fish out to six miles, with more limited rights out to 12 miles. The Commission agreed that this "derogation" might be extended in the future on a 10-yearly basis, but it would now exercise control over which fish could be caught right up to the beaches. The consequences of Heath's surrender have become increasingly apparent, not least with the extension of the fisheries limits to 200 miles in 1976, under which British waters now contain more than two thirds of all Europe's fish. The CFP has resulted in a conservation catastrophe which has rapidly turned these waters into the desert that the Foreign Office privately foresaw in 1971. (Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Booker 06/01/2002)

The European Commission has failed to secure an extension to a fishing rights accord which has allowed European vessels to fish Senegalese waters since 1997. As a consequence, trawlers from Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece have pulled in their nets and ceased operations, awaiting a resolution to the deadlock - if and when talks resume next month. Agreement on a third extension could not be reached as the EC clashed with the Senegalese authorities over which area should be fished, and the length of rest periods to enable the fish stock to recover, a commission adviser said. Africans say no fish means famine. Over-fishing of African waters by European trawlers poses a threat to both the livelihoods and even the lives of local fishermen, they say. The Worldwide Fund for Nature has claimed that the European Union fishermen pose a threat to the fish stocks in Senegalese waters due to a desire to raise their catch by 60%. As stocks decline, fishermen are forced ever further out to sea for an ever smaller catch. There they face a different threat. Illegal vessels often turn their lights off at night, putting the locals in small boats at risk of collisions with large trawlers that are difficult to spot in time. (BBC Online News 2/1/02)

EU ministers responsible for fisheries agreed on Tuesday, after 26-hour talks to fix the level of fishing quotas for the next year. The Commission proposed drastic cuts in a number of quotas to protect certain fish stocks under the danger of extinction, which was strongly opposed by fishermen. Negotiators stressed they had to balance different concerns. We justified interests, with respect to those member states who fish, The Belgian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mrs Annemie Neyts said. The proposals by the Commission were based on independent scientific advice by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, (ICES) according to who some fish stocks are in a very bad state. Therefore originally proposals for 2002 included substantial cuts in fishing opportunities. There was no clear recommendation by the ICES. The biggest cuts in catch quotas included species in danger of extinction like cod and hake. The cuts, however, were not introduced to all stocks. The Commission wanted cuts in catches up to 58 per cent but the goal was not reached fully, mainly because of strong objections of fishermen. For example 52-per cent cut in haddock in the Irish Sea was initially proposed but finally 50 per cent was agreed. 58 per cent cut of same species in the Kattegat was decreased to 55 per cent. A reduction of total allowable catches for nephrops in the Bay of Biscay proposed by 45-50 per cent, finally was accepted at 20-35 per cent depending on the area. (EUobserver.com 18.12.2001)

 Baltic herring and salmon until 2006. It is forbidden to sell it to other EU countries. Finish paper Uusimaa says, "Since when and why did we start asking Brussels what we are allowed to eat? This can only be described as grovelling." (European Voice 22/11/01)

COD stocks in the North Sea this year are at their lowest recorded levels and risk being wholly eliminated, the Government has been warned. Elliot Morley, fisheries minister, said the annual survey of stocks by the International Council for Exploration of the Seas showed that cod was "in dire trouble". Stocks were in danger of total collapse as happened with Canadian cod in the early 1990s. But Mr Morley, who also spoke of other stocks being outside safe biological limits, said the fish and chip trade and retail outlets for cod were not threatened. This is because supplies remain plentiful in the Barents Sea and the Baltic. The figures were so low mostly because there were few parent cod left to spawn and temperatures in the North Sea were two degrees higher on average over the past decade - too warm for the cod. None of the cuts in quota over the past decade has made any difference to the relentless reduction in the number of adult cod, now estimated at 55,000 tons in the whole North Sea. (Daily Telegraph 23/10/2001)

Since 1998, barely the half of the politically allocated 1.000.000 tonne sand eel quota, which has rolled over year after year since , has been caught. Without any consideration whatsoever for the sand eel stocks, the industrial fishermen have been allowed to catch and land, sand eel fry. Even though ICES and the commissioner have been well aware since 1998, that the sand eel stocks have been in a deplorable condition, and are far from sustainable , they still give the industrial fishing of these stocks, green credentials . The industrial fishing of sand eels must be curbed, and it must be curbed now if the stocks are to survive. The sand eel TAC ( total allowable catch ) must be cut to at least the half of the official catch figures since 1998, to have any impact on not only the sand eel stocks but all other north sea fish stocks, that rely on them as feed. This will mean a quota of 250.000. Tonnes. (Campaign To Curb Sand Eel Fishing 24/7/01 Denmark)

The European Commission (EC) is proposing fishing catches be cut by up to 50% in an effort to safeguard threatened stocks of cod and hake. EC scientists say overfishing in the North Sea is now so severe that just three out of 10 cod reach maturity. Brussels says a long-term plan to scale back fishing fleets is the only effective response to the crisis - but admits this will lead to job losses. Earlier this year, a large swathe of the North Sea was closed to protect cod spawning grounds - the first time such a drastic measure was taken. This week, the commission is expected to announce similar emergency closures of hake fishing grounds. Some of the worst-affected areas are in the North Sea and the Irish Sea. Recovery period Fisheries Commissioner, Franz Fischler, says long-term cuts in catches are needed to allow fish stocks to recover. Last December, EU ministers reluctantly agreed a 45% reduction in cod and hake quotas for the current year. Environmental groups warned that was insufficient, and now the commission says the cuts should be extended indefinitely. As a result, it warns, some fishing businesses will go bust, leading to significant job losses. EU funds to help fishing communities are available, but officials say countries like Britain have failed to use all the money because under EC rules they must contribute too. The commission hopes its conservation plan - which must be agreed by ministers - can be introduced by the middle of next year at the latest. (BBC On-line News 13 June, 2001)

In Strasbourg last Thursday MEPs were in a frenzy, pushing buttons to record nearly 300 votes on a further mass of legislation that will eventually impact on the people in Britain. The oddest approval was for a French proposal to change the technical rules affecting construction of fishing trawls. MEPs were assured that a scientific report had shown this would enable just as many small fish to escape from the nets as under existing regulations. Yet the report in question says nothing of the kind. What the scientists in fact found was that the new measure would increase fish mortality by 17%. In other words, the MEPs nodded the proposal through on the basis of blatant lie, which non-spotted, and the only result of which will be to make the ecological disaster in Community fishing waters even worse. On such a basis we are now govern and, and virtually no one notices. (Sunday Telegraph with 8/7/01).

The Irish minister for the Marine, Mr Fahy, has hit out at the EU's Common Fisheries Policy for failing its coastal communities. The CFP is "top-down, complex, remote and centralised". The current quota system was neither fair nor equitable, given that Ireland, with 11% of Union waters, has just 4% of quotas. He called don the EU to analyse the need to extend 12-mle limits to protect inshore fishing stocks. Increased fishing effort outside the 12-mile zone had had a devastating effect on inshore stocks in some areas, and Ireland was badly affected by this. Mr Franz Fischler, Agriculture and Fisheries Commissioner said he favoured the "free market" approach to quotas, which should be traded internationally. (Irish Times 19/6/01)

 Last Monday fisheries minister Elliott Morley was saved from embarrassment by the ending of the 12-week "cod ban", the EU scheme to close 40,000 square miles of the North Sea during the spawning season, supposedly to protect collapsing cod stocks. One of many ludicrous anomalies of the ban was that, while Brussels allowed "industrial fishing" to continue, the very practice which is devastating the small fish which are the basis of the marine food chain and which the cod need to survive, it prohibited crab-fishing which poses no harm to cod at all. Mr Morley agreed this was an absurd "oversight" and promised to get the regulation changed. But when it became clear that the British fisheries minister was completely impotent to influence what happened in waters within sight of Britain’s coastline, the skippers of two large Devon crab boats, the Euroclydon and the William Henry, were so angry they decided simply to ignore the ban. When eventually they were "cautioned" for putting down their pots off the coast of Shetland, they replied that the first witness they would call in their defence it they were prosecuted was Mr Morley. Of course the real purpose of the ban was not to protect cod but to force more Scottish fishermen out of business, by preventing them from earning a living. This is needed by Brussels before the Spanish fleet is given full access to the North Sea in two years time. Since up to 200 fishermen are now reported to have left the Scottish industry since the ban began, the European Commission can claim its scheme as a brilliant success. (Sunday Telegraph 6/5/01)

The European Commission unveiled radical proposals to reform the European Union's E1.1bn (£700m) common fisheries policy. They include plans to establish teams of EU fish inspectors with powers to fine fishing fleets guilty of overfishing in European waters. The proposals are among the most drastic mooted since the inception of the EU's common fisheries policy, drawn up in the early 1970s. They have been made in response to scientific findings that fishing stocks have reached dangerously low levels, while fishing fleet capacity remains at historically high levels. EU fisheries commissioner Franz Fischler said in a statement: "The Common Fisheries Policy needs urgent change: many of the most important fish stocks are on the verge of collapse. We are catching too many fish too young, which is seriously hindering the renewal of fish stocks". Under the Commission's proposals the annual setting of national fishing quotas - a marathon meeting in which national fisheries ministers thrash out allowable catches for the year - would be scrapped in favour of establishing quotas several times a year. We need to have permanent observation of stocks - not just once a year - because spawning periods are not always the same," an EU official involved in fisheries policy said. The Commission's proposals, which would need the approval of EU member states in order to come into force, are likely to face opposition in Britain, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and France, all of which have significant fishing industries. In December European fishermen complained bitterly after EU fisheries ministers agreed the most sweeping cuts in fish catches for decades in a move that has contributed to heavy job losses and lost income for Europe's already hard-pressed fishing fleet. (Financial Times 20/3/01) The new office is an embryonic EU fisheries ministry. The commission is justifying this leap forward on the grounds that it will create a level playing field across Europe. Mr Fischler said the EU could not continue to tolerate a system where some countries enforced the rules, at a heavy cost to their own fishing industry, while others did not. He said: "It has led to a great deal of mistrust. Fishermen feel they are being treated differently, depending on which state they come from." Britain is extremely strict in carrying out sea patrols to catch violators and metes out some of the harshest punishments. By contrast, lax inspectors in parts of Spain have been accused of turning a blind eye to the use of illegal nets by Spanish fishermen, or even colluding in the abuses. (Daily Telegraph 24 March 2001)

Overfishing has taken many stocks beyond safe biological limits; the catching of too many fish too young is hindering their renewal. The number of adult demersal (bottom-dwelling) fish in EU waters has fallen by 90% since the early 1970s. Conservation measures have failed to protect stocks, and shrinking returns have encouraged people to fish harder (often by investing more in technology). This in turn has made stocks and marine ecosystems more vulnerable, as well as undermining economic viability. Employment in the catching sector fell by 19% between 1990 and 1997 (10% in processing).(CEC The Week in Europe 22/3/01) http://www.cec.org.uk/press/we/we01/latest.htm#5

It is clearly insane for Brussels to forbid fishing for human consumption while allowing the sandeel catching to continue, since the Danish boats also catch large quantities of small cod, the very fish the "recovery scheme" is intended to protect; particularly since the inevitable result has been to force hundreds of Scottish and other boats to fish instead in an area they would normally avoid at this time of year, inflicting untold destruction on billions of juvenile haddock, which were the last flourishing stock anywhere in the North Sea. It was fisheries minister Baroness Hayman in the Lords on February 5, who revealed her ignorance by claiming that industrial fishing could not harm the cod spawning on the bottom because sandeels swim "near the surface" (this was what she had been told by the European Commission). (Booker notebook Sunday Telegraph 4/3/01) (See also the Danish Fishermen's Union appeal (24/7/01) to cut sand-eel fishing)

Fishermen were being urged to tie up their trawlers in protest against North Sea cod preservation measures amid claims that other species were being put in danger. More than 70 skippers in Peterhead have called their vessels into harbour to protect haddock off the west coast of Scotland, which they say are being "slaughtered" by fishermen who have been banned from fishing large areas of the North Sea. He claimed that the Scottish fishing industry was weeks away from collapse if haddock stocks continued to fall, putting thousands of jobs at risk. In real terms, two thirds of the fishing grounds available to North-east fishermen are probably closed, which has pushed the whole fleet west into the grounds which are open. As a result, there has been large scale slaughter of the haddock stock. About 90% of the haddock catch had been undersize fish which were then thrown back dead into the sea, meaning that fewer fish were surviving long enough to breed. The Government has been warned repeatedly that if they introduced these measures to conserve the cod, this would happen and the nightmare scenario has arrived. ( FEB 10, 2001 PA News

The price of red diesel has no tax element and is purely linked to oil prices. Thus in the past year fishermen have seen this cost in some cases double. The British government says it cannot help since subsidies are illegal under EU (CFP) rules. The Irish government is more robust. It agrees that it cannot give compensation but it called a conference to discuss some technical fishing question and paid each skipper who attended £500. furthermore another similar conference has been called and attendance there will earn £1,500. Thus the Irish fishermen are not complaining of the price of diesel. (Eurofaq posting C Speight 1/2/01)

Malcolm Moss MP, Tory spokesman on Ag and Fish, said that an incoming Tory administration would, "...take control of British waters." (Daily Telegraph 26/1/01)

An emergency EU ban has been issued on cod fishing in the North Sea in attempt to save cod stocks from total collapse, reports The Times. The duration of the ban is 10 weeks and it is to be enforced in an area covering one fifth of the North Sea. Fishermen, who fish in the North Sea, are already calling for compensation. But in Denmark the responsible minister has announced that no compensation will be offered. The European Union ban prohibits trawling for deep-sea fish in all the main spawning grounds of North Sea cod for the duration of the spawning season, which ends on April 30. "We are in a crisis. The current cod stock in the North Sea is in danger of collapse. That means there may not be any more cod to fish," a European Commission spokeswoman said according to The Times. "The whole purpose is to allow as many young cod to survive this year as possible." According to DR Nyheder Danish Fishermen belive that the Commission is overreacting and that a change to larger holed nets would be sufficient enough to save the cod stocks. Fishermen in both Denmark and the United Kingdom have demanded compensation from their respective governments to save them from ruin. But in Denmark so far the response to the fishermen's call have been negative. Ritt Bjerregaard, the responsible minister, said the only compensation offered would be to those fishermen, who decided to stop fishing all together. (EUobserver.com 25/1/01)

SCOTLAND’S deep sea fishing fleet faces extinction under European Commission proposals to introduce quotas for species caught in the far reaches of the Atlantic for the first time. Skippers, operating in the hostile waters of the Atlantic, have warned that catch limits recommended would leave them to pick up the scraps while French, Portuguese, Spanish and Danish boats grab the lion’s share of a massive catch in what used to be British territorial waters. It will, they claim, sound the death knell for the 20 Scottish vessels which currently fish in the deep waters 200 miles into the Atlantic. The trawlers, each with a crew of between eight and 12, are among the biggest and most powerful in the Scottish fleet, each costing between £2 million and £4 million. The deep sea fleet’s prey includes the roundnose grenadier and the orange roughy, fish never seen on the tables of British restaurants. The catches are driven straight from ports like Lochinver and Scrabster to the Continent and exported as far afield as the sushi bars of Japan where fish such as black halibut and blue ling command huge prices. Robert Mitchell, the owner of the Macduff-registered stern trawler, the Mizpah, told The Scotsman: "We believe the French are the main instigators behind this move because they have been fishing the area longer than the rest of the countries and stand to gain the most if TACs are imposed. "Under the quota limits which went before the council, Scottish boats would have been left with next to nothing. On scabbard fish they were proposing a UK quota of only 37 tonnes out of a total catch of 4,941 tonnes while Portugal would have got 3,041 tonnes and France 1,821 tonnes. "For blue ling they were recommending a total quota of 4,132 tonnes with France claiming a share 3,272 tonnes and the UK only 562 tonnes. "For roundnose grenadier they were proposing a TAC of 6,435 tonnes with a UK share of 41 tonnes, France getting 4,643 tonnes, the Spanish 459 tonnes, and the Danes 1,188 tonnes. Some of our boats land 41 tonnes of grenadier in one trip." "It’s absolutely incredible. We were being asked to surrender these huge quotas in what used to be our territorial waters." Roddy McColl, the secretary of Fishermen’s Association Limited, said: "Some of our biggest and best boats are exploiting this fishery at the moment and it takes pressure off the very hard pressed stocks of cod and haddock. It is imperative that a viable share out is obtained for our boats when the TACs are finally set." (Scotsman 28/12/00)

"Britain's favourite meal - fish and chips - is under threat from plans to ban cod fishing from large parts of the North Sea. "The Government is considering closing the sea to fishermen in a final attempt to save the cod from disappearing from British waters. "Numbers of the fish are now so low following decades of overfishing and mismanagement that scientists are advising the European Union to ban trawlers from the area. ..the Government indicated at an EU meeting in June that it would follow the advice of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) to stope the fish from becoming commercially extinct. European fisheries ministers will consider the plans in December for approval early in the New Year..." (Daily Mail', Monday 6th Nov, 2000)

Yesterday five Spanish fishing vessels, sixteen crew and 110 feet LOA, "Ringnetters" arrived in Newlyn. Some of these vessels were invloved four or five years ago in ripping the nets of the Newlyn fishing fleet which was out Tuna fishing. Brussels has given these vessels 600,000 EUROS for two months "research" into the fishing of anchovies, pilchards, bream, John Dorey's and assorted non pressure stock species of fish. If successful next year between 15 and 25 ships will be based in Newlyn and if this is successful we can look forward to a fleet of several hundred. With the past track record the Spanish will wipe the seas clean of these fish as they have done so successfully before. This is due to the 800 displaced Spanish boats which were removed from Moroccan waters and therefore the Spanish need somewhere to fish. (Mick Mahon Newlyn fisherman 25/10/00)

Patrick Nicholls MP, then junior shadow fishing Minister, said in Blackpool last year that no new British fisheries protection boats were being built - as they came up for replacements, those replacements were being built by the EU. (Eurofaq posting Idris Francis 26/10/00)

The EU Commission considers having its own patrol ships backed by aircraft in order to control fishing, reports Electronic Telegraph. At present the enforcement of EU fishing codes is carried out by member states. They act against their own fishermen, causing great bitterness. In Britain this means rigorous patrolling by the Royal Navy and Ministry of Agriculture aircrafts. Spain's notoriously lax inspectors, on the other hand, are accused of turning a blind eye when their fishermen exceed their permitted catch or use illegal nets, writes Electronic Telegraph. Dr Richard North, a fisheries expert for the UK Independence Party at the European Parliament, said to the Telegraph that allowing the build-up of an EU patrol fleet would be "tantamount to allowing the EU its own gunboats" . (EUObserver 25/10/00)

THE principle that guided the negotiations leading to Britain's accession to the EEC was "swallow the lot and swallow it now", according to the official history of the talks, secret until today. The account, by Sir Con O'Neill, the diplomat who led the negotiating team, says that what mattered was to get in. The negotiations were secondary. They were concerned "only with the means of achieving this objective at an acceptable price". However, he acknowledged mistakes, in particular over the fishing talks. "We failed to foresee the way in which, and the intensity with which, political pressures on the question of fishing limits would develop," he wrote. The consequences of letting European boats into British waters reverberate to this day. (D Telegraph Thursday 7 September 200)

Atlantic Dawn, a 144- metre-long, I£50m (E63m, $57m) ship is owned by an Irishman, was built in Norway and will fish off the west coast of Africa. Kevin McHugh, the 54-year-old owner, will skipper the boat on its maiden voyage this week, to trawl for mackerel, sardines and other mid-water "pelagic" species in Mauritanian waters, under the European Union's so-called third-country agreements. "He didn't get a copper of state aid. That's what people forget about this story," says Joey Murrin, who stepped down at the weekend after 22 years heading the local Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation. (FT September 4 2000). The EU is paying €266m of European Taxpayer's money over five years to the government of Mauritania to buy access to its rich fishing waters. This has the effect of reducing costs to private operators seeking new fishing grounds outside overfished European waters. The costs of this indirect subsidy are borne by local fishing communities that are starved of natural resources and the disruption to the fragile marine ecosystem. (Letter to FT from WWF 8/9/00)

After thirty years of CFP cod becomes an endangered specie: The WWF (formerly World Wildlife Fund) has announced that it was placing cod on the endangered species list. The North Sea stocks are about half of what they were in the mid-sixties. By a coincidence, the Common Fisheries Policy, which was supposed to conserve fish and preserve fishermen's livelihoods was agreed on in 1970. Recently, the rules about the size of fish caught in EU waters have been relaxed. Both cod and sole are being caught well below their breeding size. (Eurobrief 3 3/9/00)

World fish stocks are seriously depleted. More and more vessels are chasing fewer and fewer fish, and prices are soaring. In Britain alone, sea fishing now employs fewer than 18,000 people. Fifty years ago it was nearly 48,000. In June all nine of the North Sea commercial fish stocks were described by European scientists as "outside safe biological limits" and 67% of all stocks in the north-east Atlantic were severely depleted or in danger of becoming so. And with bigger fish in serious decline smaller species, mackerel, sardines and anchovies, are now the main targets. Europe's stocks of fish are badly depleted because of 20 years of disastrous EU fishing policy. But the EU has disguised its chronic inability to manage once abundant fish stocks by using its financial clout to ensure that in Europe there is always enough fish to meet consumer demand. Its fleets now deplete the fisheries of Africa and South America. They deprive local people of food and work, and as they destroy once healthy stocks round the globe, they compete with other rich nations for ever-dwindling supplies. Around £70m a year is paid to developing countries to allow 1,300 European boats to fish in their waters. A similar amount is paid to ship owners in subsidies to build new superboats. The excuse is that these subsidies to shipyards and boat owners finance 20,000 direct fishermen's jobs and another 50,000 in shipbuilding and processing plants in Europe. Morocco has thrown out the EU from its waters after years of allowing exploitation by Spanish boats. The EU has paid the Spanish compensation and told them to tie up their boats while they try to buy more rights elsewhere. Chile responded by closing its harbours to EU vessels. Euan Dunn, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' fisheries officer, said: "We are exporting our own mismanagement of Europe's fish stocks to the developing world. We are moving from stock to stock, systematically destroying it and moving on to the next. The EU fishing policy stinks and there will soon be very few fish to catch." (Guardian Monday August 14, 2000)

The central problem in trying to put together all the European Union’s fishing waters as a "common resource" has been the difficulty of accommodating the 17,000 boats of Spain’s fishing fleet, which is twice as big as any other in the EU. The solution devised by Brussels was to set targets for reducing each country’s fleet, so that Britain, whose national waters contain 80% of the fish, was expected to cut back by over 20%, while Spain, contributing virtually no fish, has to cut less than 5%. The European Parliament’s fisheries committee has endorsed the report pointing out that, while some countries such as Spain and Portugal are comfortably within their reduction targets, other fleets such as Britain’s are still far too large (even though between 1993 and 1997 more than 3,000 boats, more than a quarter, left the register). MEPs recommended imposing drastic penalties on countries such as Britain, such as reducing fishing quotas. (S Telegraph 30/1/00)

The European Parliament's Fisheries Committee has now endorsed a report saying that Britain has still not cut its fleet adequately and should lose some of its quota for landings while praising Spain for cutting its fleet. S Telegraph 30/1/00)

Skipper John Pirie Forman, of the Peterhead trawler "Veracious", reports that he and his crew threw 15 tons of coley, sometimes called saithe, back into the sea, dead. This was because the geniuses in Brussels set very small quotas for coley, although this fish is abundant. His crew also dumped 4 tons of small haddocks. This was because with his very small quota for haddock, when he took some larger fish, which would fetch a better price, he was forced to discard the smaller fish. All this while he watched vessels of other EU states fishing away without restrictions, although the same rules are supposed to apply to them. Retired Fishery Protection officers have testified that they were under orders to watch British fishermen like hawks, but "not to upset our European partners". As a once great fish-exporting nation, our fishermen could earn us billions in foreign exchange. Incredibly, with 80% of the fish stocks of the EU, we are now net importers of fish. ( 3/4/00 Save Britain's Fish campaign)

TWICE last weekend the citizens of the tiny Northern Irish fishing port of Portavogie were treated to the bizarre sight of enraged local fishermen chasing four Government fisheries officials down the quay forcing them to take refuge in their office. Anyone wanting to see how the federal Europe Mr Blair is so keen on actually works in practice might consider an extraordinary saga now unfolding on both sides of the Irish Sea, in consequence of a ban on cod fishing ordered by Brussels earlier this month under European Commission Regulation 594/2000. By this regulation, designed to protect Irish Sea cod stocks during the spawning season, all 50 inshore fishing-boats in Fleetwood, Lancashire, have been ordered to tie up until the end of April: The fishermen accept the need to protect the cod; which have taken a hammering in recent years from large Belgian and Dutch beam trawlers allowed into the Irish Sea under the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy. But what angers the fishermen is that, while it is made a criminal offence for them to leave pert, out to sea off the Lancashire coast more than a dozen large Belgian trawlers are still hauling in hundreds of boxes of cod, far more than the small Fleetwood boats could ever catch Even more astonishingly, this is quite legal because the beamers are specifically given a "derogation'' from the Brussels regulation, although it was their environmentally devastating trawls scraping along the bottom that decimated the cod stocks in the first place. What similarly angers the Northern Irish fishermen is that most of the cod swim north to their spawning grounds via the southern Irish Sea, Where Irish boats are still permitted by Brussels to hang gill nets miles long across their path, catching large quantities of cod before they reach their destination. The Portavogie fishermen were pushed to breaking point last weekend by the heavy-handed way fisheries officers were using the excuse of the EU cod ban to step up their general policing. When two weary crews',returned to port at 1 am, after fishing outside the area of the ban and having notified the officials they intended to land their catch in the morning when the fish market was open, they were met by four officials ordering them to land the fish immediately. So officiously did the inspectors press their demands that the' fishermen, who had not broken the law in any way, chased them off the quay. Our fishermen are not just angry at the lunacy of conservation rules that force them to fish while far more destructive forms of fishing are still permitted. They also cannot understand why our Government refuses to draw on EU funds designed to compensate fishermen for loss of livelihood; under which, for instance, 4,200 Spanish fishermen are getting E125 million, including E10 million from British taxpayers, in compensation for months they are not being allowed to fish off the coast of Morocco. The Fleetwood fishermen, banned from earning a living for 10 weeks, must still pay hundreds of pounds a week for harbour dues, insurance and food for their families. Yet When the fisheries minister Elliot Morley was asked about this on local television last week, he airily said there was no provision for compensation because it was a "conservation matter". This is wholly untrue because EU rules specifically allow for compensation to fishermen temporarily deprived of income by conservation measures. As Mark Hamer, the Fleetwood fishermen's spokesman, despairingly puts it: "Mr Morley seems to expect them to live on thin air." The reality, however, is much worse. What ministers really hope is that most of our remaining small fishermen will go out of business altogether: leaving the UK's fishing waters to the uncontrolled depredations of what Brussels likes to call "the Union Fleet". (Sunday Telegraph 27/2/2000)

There are growing fears that the fishing fleet is becoming dangerously old because of a lack of funds to replace dated or worn equipment. While even the most modern boats are at high risk in heavy storms, those built 20 to 30 years ago are in even more danger. The fishermen, squeezed by the annual European quota cuts designed to conserve fish stocks, cannot afford to re-invest in their assets. Irish fishermen are able to tap the government for money to update their equipment, with funds matched by the EU. In the UK, European money will not be available until the fleet shrinks to agreed levels. Another recent blow to the fishermen was the withdrawal of the government's "safety grants " which pay for 30% of the cost of improving equipment. (Financial Times 13/1/00)

The European Union's fishing fleet is receiving subsidies of more than £920 million a year. It is equivalent to £2 for every £10 worth of fish landed. The World Wide Fund for Nature said that the EU should start planning to phase out fishing subsidies that encouraged over fishing. (FT 3/9/99)

Currently Britain spends £108 million per year regulating an industry worth £600 million, with 40% of fish landings inspected and over 4000 vessels boarded every year by fisheries inspectors. "UK fishermen fill in 170,000 logsheets annually to be scrutinised by 156 port inspectors. Clearly the entire fisheries sector is over- regulated and bureaucratic. (Press release: Conservatives in The European Parliament, 17 Dec 1999)

Fishermen warned the government that many of them could be ruined by record cutbacks in EU catch quotas designed to save North Sea cod and other species from extinction. They told Elliott Morley, fisheries minister, that proposed EU restrictions, which would curb some catches by up to 70%, would wipe £90 million of their incomes and put in entire fishing communities at risk. (Daily Telegraph 16/12/99)

A vote taken on Thursday - 2/12/99) in the European Parliament could "price cod out of Britain's traditional fish and chip shops". Euro-MPs rejected Conservative moves to stop a Spanish proposal in the European Parliament, which will push up the price of cod in Europe. The Spanish want tariffs on cod imports to go up. Existing EU rules are flexible enough, but the Spanish want to protect their own fishing industry regardless of the cost to Europe's consumers." The UK eats a quarter of all the cod caught worldwide and British fishermen catch around 5%. Europe as a whole consumes much more cod than it catches and it is crucial to reduce import tariffs, not raise them. The Spanish plan goes against the tide of free trade and lower tariffs, and could sink fish and chip shops across Britain. UK fish processors will be forced to pay higher prices if EU Fisheries Ministers accept these proposals. Coupled with dramatic cuts soon to be imposed on EU cod quotas, the cost of fish and chips will rise unless EU Fisheries Ministers throw out Parliament's report. Spanish efforts to batter the British fishing industry must be resisted. (CCO Press Release 2 December 1999)

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food staged a conference in Swindon to brief South-West fisheries inspectors on a deluge of new EC regulations to be heaped on fishermen in the new year. Until now fishermen have only to log catches of fish covered by EC quotas. Now, on pain of criminal penalties, owners of boats 10 m or above in length will have to record all the fish they catch, twice or even three times. It has been estimated that 60 such boats in Devon and Cornwall each catch, on an average overnight trip, fish of 15 difference species, weighing 75 kilos and worth £200. Every week from January these boats were must generate 180 log sheets, 180 landing declarations and 180 sales sheets: 540 pieces of paper to be checked by those poor, overworked MAFF officials, or for 10 tonnes of fish, worth less than £25,000. (Sunday Telegraph 14/11/99)

Attempts to agree rules on funding for the EU's fishing industry are in danger of foundering because governments will not accept limits on new vessels. The European Commission insists that no new boats should be subsidised using EU structural funds until member states have fulfilled promises to cut their fleets by one third. But governments, including France and the Netherlands, have so far refused to make the funds conditional on meeting existing commitments. (European Voice 21/10/99)

Spanish fishermen continue to catch undersized bluefin than tuna and swordfish in defiance of international law and despite a dangerous fall in stocks. Though other countries including France, landed undersize fish, Spain had by far the worst record. World Wide Fund for Nature researchers found in a survey of fish landed in Spanish ports that 83% of all bluefin tuna landed in the Mediterranean and half those landed from the Atlantic by Spain were below minimum size. More than a third of the swordfish caught in the Atlantic, mostly by Spain, were below the minimum length. Overcapacity, fuelled by EU subsidies, is contributing to over fishing, which results in undersize fish being caught. (Daily Telegraph and 16/11/99)

A small fish processing business in Grimsby faces an increase in its waste water charges from £7,139 a year to £63, 519 under the EC's Urban Waste Water Treatment directive. All the other 120 business that makes Grimsby the largest fish-processing centre in Europe had similar demands. The chairman of the Grimsby Fish Merchants Association said "this is far more than most businesses can afford. We will see many closures, and a loss of hundreds, if not thousands of jobs." The EC directive forbids the discharge into the North Sea of freshwater and gutted fish remains that came from the sea the first place. Yet Grimsby's entire waste output is minuscule compared with the millions of tons a dead fish that fishermen are forced to discard to pollute the sea floor under the quota rules imposed by the EU's Common Fisheries Policy. Grimsby folk also note that the officials who drafted the directive are sitting Brussels, still without a sewage treatment plant. They thus help to discharge hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage into the rivers Senne, which eventually reaches the same North Sea. (Sunday Telegraph 21 February 1999)

Millions of pounds worth of Brussels' money has been embezzled by shipowners from the Mediterranean countries who have claimed cash for ships that had already sunk and others that were barely seaworthy. A damaging auditor's report has criticised the European Commission for failure to take adequate precautions to prevent these frauds, which could amount to almost £30 million. The missing funds were part of a £210 million programme to modernise nearly 200 vessels, most of them in southern Europe. In one case, it was discovered that Brussels had been financing a submerged wreck lying somewhere off Portugal's coast. The auditors found that, throughout the Mediterranean, the Brussels budget became a byword for easy money and operators dreamt up increasingly inventive applications for grants. Boats sank in mysterious circumstances after owners had received final payments from Brussels. Brussels realised that vessels in Italy less than 15 m long were being registered for aid, which is against its rules. But the Italian government continued to hand out money, using another system of measurement. More than £7 million was released, nearly all which remains unrecovered. A condition of the subsidies was the boats continued to supply fish to the EU markets for three years. Two French vessels, modernised at the expense of the European taxpayer, were promptly sold outside the EU. The French government is refusing to accept that grants worth £2 million should be paid back. European Commission officials were heavily criticised for the failure to make more than a handful of visits to the recipients of the aid. (Sunday Telegraph 28 February 1999)

Bombay Duck banned. The import of all fish products from India was banned by the EU from 30 July 1997. This was due to the detection of some bacteria on frozen shrimp and squid. (Reuters report 4/8/97). Bombay Duck is a delicacy adored by curry gourmets. It is dried bummalo fish and is not a health risk. It can also be obtained as a curry pickle. The Indian High Commission is not aware of any harm from Bombay Duck. The Public Health Laboratory Service (10/11/97) and the EU Agricultural Commissioner (8/10/97) confirmed this. The EU lifted the total ban on India but restricted imports to fresh fish supplied from "approved" large-scale fish processing plants. There is no provision on the EU inspection certificate for dried fish. Bombay Duck is a cottage industry and it is not feasible for Indian food inspectors based in the large processing plants to visit little local producers. The EC , and MAFF, deny that Bombay Duck was banned. But you could not buy it! This is called being "economical with the truth." Following representations from the Indian High Commission, at my request, the EU compromised. Bombay Duck can be dried in the open air but must be packed in an "approved fish processing establishment". It took over a year to find a plant that would take on this niche trade but now supplies are coming through again, after a four break. See the Save Bombay Duck web site for the full story (30/1/01).

Graig Farm Organic Foods near Llandrindod Wells has developed a market for Soil Association approved organic wild fish from St Helena. Under EC regulations for organic food he is forbidden from describing the fish as organic, or wild. The reason is that the fish do not come from a "designated" area where there is control of water quality so there can be no proof there is no pollution. St Helena is in the south Atlantic, 1,140 miles from the coast of Africa, 1,800 miles from South America. (Graig Farm 22/1/99)

The UK government spends £50m on enforcement of EC fishing laws, equivalent to 10% of the entire catch by British fishermen. The logbook system is to be extended to cover even species not subject to any controls. (Herald Express 30/10/98)(FFP25)

Elliot Morley the Fisheries Minister is to challenge the EU plans to reduce fishermen's catches of cod, haddock and whiting by 27% next year. The cuts would be a further blow to fishermen facing the increasing costs of complying with the anti-cheating and fish conservation rules by wiping millions of pounds off the industry's 1999 earnings. (D Telegraph 14/12/98). Fishing fleets will suffer reductions in 1999 catches of up to 30% in a deal agreed by EU fish ministers. Eliot Morley claimed a significant success. Cod catches reduced by 20%, west of Scotland whiting reduced by 30%, North Sea haddock down by 23%. English Channel plaice and North Sea sole increased by15%. The Scottish Fisherman's Federation said the cuts were disastrous. (FT 19/12/98)

After the Tory Party conference the armchair used by Edward Heath was acquired by a group of fishermen. To mark their gratitude for giving away Britain's fishing waters they propose to burn the chair on Guy Fawkes Night with a life-sized effigy of the great man himself (S Telegraph 18/10/98)

Scottish salmon farms are suffering from a new disease believed to be imported from Norway where it is endemic. It is called infectious salmon anaemia. It is a Class 1 disease under EC regulations. All fish have to be exterminated when it is detected in fish farms. There is no compensation and production cannot start for six months. This encourages under reporting. Scottish salmon farmers want to create an exclusion zone to prevent re-infection from imported fish. Under EC law they are forbidden to do this. (BBC TV Country File 6/9/98 & 11/10/98)

New EC rules state that lobsters have to be 2mm larger than the old standard. Scottish lobsters are small because they grow slowly in cold waters. Under the new rules half those caught will have to be thrown back. (BBC TV Country File 27/9/98). "Two fishermen landed in court after catching lobsters one milimetre short of the length officially required by EU regulations. Lionel Mainprize, 62, and Robert Turner, 56, from Scarborough, North Yorks, are believed to be the first fishermen in the United Kingdom to fall foul of a Brussels edict issued in June which increased the acceptable length of a lobster from 85mm to 87mm. The pair were prosecuted at Scarborough Magistrates Court this week and ordered to pay £300 costs after six of their 37 lobsters were found to be 86mm long. The fishermen, both of whom received conditional discharges, had gone to great efforts to stay within the law, using an aluminium strip on their 20ft boat to measure each crusacean. But fisheries officers used an expensive more accurate Vernier gauge." (D Telegraph 29/11/00)

Hundreds of Britain's largest fishing vessels will be struck off the shipping register by the end of 1998 unless the owners pay up to £1,000 a time to have them painstakingly re-measured to comply with EU regulations. More than 1,000 vessels must be reassessed. According to Brussels the move is intended to ensure fair play when it comes to assessing the catching capacity of each member state. (D Telegraph 10/8/98)

On any trip boats will have to discard dead fish if they are accidentally over quota. They are not allowed to chose the worst fish to discard. They must chuck overboard the most recently caught. (European journal 6/98)(FFP)

Fish Fingers are under threat from EU restrictions on cod caught by Russian and other foreign fishing vessels. Tight hygiene standards applied to factory ships will be applied to trawlers too. This will price cod and fish fingers out of the market; they will become an expensive luxury item. The UK eats a quarter of the world’s total catch of cod. British vessels only land 20% of the demand. (D Telegraph 25/6/98)

Spanish fishermen are to be awarded compensation by the British government when they were excluded by the 1998 Merchant Shipping Act from using UK fishing quotas. This is the first time in which the English courts have had to award damages against the UK government for breaches of EC law by the enactment and implementation of an Act of Parliament. (D Telegraph 6/9/98). Spanish fishermen will be entitled to pursue an estimated £80 million in compensation from the Government after a House Of Lords ruling. Five Law Lords found that Britain committed a serious breach of EU law in banning them for fishing under British quotas. The amount, which could be claimed by Spanish fishermen in individual court cases, is expected to top hundred million pounds once interest and legal costs are added. The European Court ruled in 1991 that Spanish boats were a legally prevented from "quota hopping" by the 1998 Merchant Shipping Act, introduced by the government keep British quotas for British fishermen. The Act, ruled contrary to EU law in 1991 in the Factortame case, banned foreign vessels from registering in Britain for quotas awarded to Britain under the Common Fisheries Policy. The chairman of the Brixham Trawler Agents said "it has strengthened the position of the Spanish fishermen will be able to buy more licences and weaken our own fishermen. We have given our power away to Brussels." A Newlyn fisherman said, "through our contributions to Brussels we have poured hundreds of millions of pounds into modernising the Spanish fishing fleet." (Daily Telegraph 29/11/99)

In 1997 Welsh fisherman Ken Bagley was fishing for sprats and happened to catch a few baby herring in his net as well. The fish live in the same water and look alike. He had no quota for herring so it was a criminal offence to land them. When he arrived at port a Mr Smart, Fisheries Inspector, examined the catch and found the few herring. He told Mr Bagley that he has to separate out the herring and discard them before landing the catch. He can tell the different species apart by stroking their bellies. The bellies of herring are smoother. It would have taken Mr Bagley 31 days and nights to sort through several million fish. He asked, through his MP, if this really was the policy of the government. The Fisheries Minister confirmed that belly stroking was the method laid down in the EC regulations. Mr Bagley had his licence confiscated pending a criminal prosecution. A year later the charges were dropped but in the mean time Mr Bagley had been unable to earn his living. (Eurofacts/ C Booker/R North 22/5/98)

Scottish prawn fisherman, Ross Watson, was found guilty on three charges of being late handing in EC logbook declarations. North Shields magistrates fined him and his partners £27,000. Angel Pousada was found guilty of illegally taking £42,000 worth of hake back to Spain, unrecorded in his logbook. Falmouth magistrates fined him £300. (S Telegraph 12/4/98)

After the Amsterdam Treaty Mr Blair boasted that we've made real progress on quota hopping. All he has got was a letter from Mr Santer, president of the Commission, which restates the existing position, namely that Britain has the right to issue licences which required proportion of fish to be landed in this country. The deal was dismissed by Spanish officials as meaningless. Commission officials were annoyed that London had depicted the exchange of letters has an agreement. (Independence summer 1997)

British fishermen are only allowed to land their catches between certain times, regardless of tides, so that they can be inspected. They must post a log sheet into a special quayside box before they can unload. British registered boats must only land their catches in British ports although foreign owned flag boats could land their British quota catches where they like. (S Telegraph 22/3/98). Fishermen are to be forced to submit to satellite surveillance. They have to install equipment costing £6,000. (D Telegraph 9/5/98) See also Save British Fish.

The EU Working Time Directive, which limits the working week to 48 hours, is to be applied to fishermen. (D Telegraph 9/5/98)

South coast fishermen have been instructed to stop fishing for cod as the UK Channel quota of 1,800 tons had been used up. The French, with a quota of 17,000 tons can continue fishing up to the British coast. Any cod caught by British boats must be dumped back in the sea. (S Telegraph 17/5/98)

Cornish oyster dredgers will be banned from their work because of EEC boat registration restrictions. (S Times 28/3/93)

The Welsh cockle industry may be forced to close. Members of this casual occupation will have to buy £60, 000 boilers to conform to data logging regulations. (Independent Jan 1993) The CEC say this is only partially correct as it applies to mussels from polluted waters only. The Welsh industry is also threatened by Dutch vacuum dredgers who are poised to ruin the stocks, as they have done elsewhere. (BBC Food Programme 10/3/97). In Camarthen market you could buy the finest cockles in the UK. Not any more, thanks to an EU directive. An inspector had ruled that the water of Camarthen Bay was not Grade A. But locals know that cockles and mussels cannot live in grade A water, they are scavengers. These small business people were told to buy expensive ultra-violet radiation holding tanks to soak their hand picked cockles for 24 hours. A totally unrealistic command, so now they are out of business. (Camarthenshire Life August 1997)

Fishermen cannot any longer boil shrimps in sea water under the Fish Hygiene Directive (Times 8/5/94).

Shell fish farms forced to close because they have the wrong type of lights over the oyster beds. (Farmers Weekly Jan. 1993)

French snail farmers have had snails re-classified as fish (land based) in order to qualify for EEC fish farming subsidies (S Telegraph 21/3/93).

A shellfish stall in Burnham-on-Crouch selling live mussels has been told to subject the container to a biological test costing £15 for every batch. Mussels sell for 60 pence a pound so it has stopped selling them. (Telegraph 3/10/93).

The UK response to the EEC measures to conserve fish stocks is to limit fishing boats to 80 days at sea a year. The UK has 200 inspectors to enforce the rule compared with 17 in Spain (S Telegraph 27/6/93). The EU is giving grants to Spanish and Italian fishermen to de-commission their boats. At the same time it is giving considerable sums for the building of new more efficient boats with 30% more catching capacity. (BBC R 4 May 1995).

The UK has won a victory over new bureaucratic rules requiring fishing boats to inform the authorities every time they enter and leave western waters. Now trawlers will only have to make a single report of their journey when away from their home port less than 72 hours. Longer absences will have to be regularly reported. (FT 25/10/95).

EC health & Safety rules require small fishermen to employ consultants, at £500 a time, to draw up a written risk assessment covering every operation on their boats. Instructions to crew must now state that: knives can cut; leaning over the rail can mean you fall over; crabs can bite (sic), etc. To employ a crew member who has not been so instructed could lead to a fine of £5,000. Staff from the Maritime Safety Agency, who charge £60 an hour including travelling time, must carry out regular safety checks. £60 is as much as most small fishermen earn in a day. The MCA said this is to help prevent the 29 deaths on fishing boats last year. However, 21 of these occurred on large boats that are subject to a different scheme. Large boats have to pay £15,000 to comply with EC safety requirements. (S Telegraph 25/10/98)

Britain may become the only member of the EU to force commercial fishermen to pay license fees for their vessels. (D Telegraph 17/1/98)

Under the Common Fisheries Policy Britain gave away 80% of the European fishing grounds, a resource worth billions of pounds, for nothing. The fish have been ruthlessly exploited to the verge of extinction. Under the quota rules more fish are dumped overboard than actually landed. (S Telegraph p 15 13/4/97).

From 2002 there will be equal access by all national fishing boats to all EU waters. (S Telegraph 31/5/98) (FFP). From 2002 there will be equal access by all national fishing boats to all EU waters. (S Telegraph 31/5/98) (FFP). The derogation allowing the British to have its own fishing fleet will come to an end and there will only be one EU fishing fleet by 2003. Both Labour and Conservative parties have reluctantly acknowledged that this will happen. They intend to ask for the current derogation to be extended. This can only be passed by the EC by unanimous voting. It would only take one state to oppose the extension for it to fail. Certainly the Spanish are not likely to support us. (Eurofacts 26/9/98)

A briefing paper by the EU Commission states that if the UK wanted to reclaim its exclusive 200 mile fishing zone then it could only be done by the use of physical force (S Telegraph 29/12/96)

The EU Directive 91/07 concerning animal health and aquaculture has several lists of controlled diseases of fish. List III contains non-serious diseases not subject to official control. In the UK MAFF has decided to use List III diseases to close down fish farms without applying for permission from the Commission (S Telegraph 8/10/94).

Fishing boats, even the smallest 12-ft vessel, must carry 620 medical items costing up to £1,800. Directive 92/29, issued without consultation, requires fishing boats to carry insulin and other dangerous drugs and urine testing papers in the emergency kit. (S Telegraph 11/12/94). This directive applies to Category B boats, which travel 3 miles out to sea, and includes the majority of vessels.

The Welfare of Animals Transport Order insists that shellfish deserve the same protection as sheep and cattle when exported. Producers who make regular trips to Billingsgate market have been told they are breaking the law by driving more than 30 miles with a bag of mussels, or tray of oysters. They must have rest periods (Daily Mail 29/1/96). A countermanding directive is to be issued excluding shellfish from this regulation (Independent 6/2/96).

M & J Seafoods was founded 15 years ago and built a thriving business importing and distributing seafood. Prawns were imported from Iceland duty free but EU inspectors discovered that the Icelanders were also obtaining prawns from Canada and Russia. They forfeited their duty free status. M & J Seafoods were unaware of the dishonesty of their Icelandic suppliers but they have received a demand to repay the 20% import duty backdated six years. No other EU country has placed this burden on its own companies but M & J will be ruined by a £500,000 bill. (D Express 23/4/96)