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ETF statement on Bluefin Tuna

26 February 2010

 It is with concern that the European Transport Workers’ Federation understands the compromise proposal on bluefin tuna that the European Commission plans to submit to the CITES.

Although the measures put forward in the EC’s plan take into account some social concerns, notably on the need to safeguard employment in small-scale fisheries, we believe it lacks of clarity and does not adequately tackle the problem of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, which heavily affects the status of bluefin tuna stocks.

While these stocks have been suffering from overfishing, banning international trade seems to be a too far-reaching measure, since, according to the STECF (European Union’s Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries), bluefin tuna is not threatened with extinction. What is more, ETF would like to point out that in October 2009, the Scientific Committee of ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) decided that the three biological criteria to include the bluefin tuna in Annex I of CITES were not met. Therefore, before taking any decision having heavy socio-economic consequences, we urge the Commission to promote an independent and extensive study based on reliable scientific data.

Moreover, a strategy specific to bluefin tuna should be deployed to eradicate IUU fishing which is the real cause of the bad state of this stock. Banning international trade without reinforcing control would only cause the increase of illegal fishing and trading of bluefin tuna, due to the high demand for this species.

A major concern for the ETF is that, notwithstanding the heavy socio-economic consequences of introducing such ban, no additional fund for accompanying the transition and promote the requalification would be given to employed fishermen, who could only benefit from the aid granted through the EFF. This situation is very worrying since, as we have already pointed out in the past, in several Member States employed fishermen have de facto a very limited access to the measures of the EFF. Moreover, some Member States have signalled that EFF resources have already been used. For all the abovementioned reasons, ETF urges the Commission to include the European social partners in the fisheries sector in the dialogue with the Member States. Against this backdrop, we would encourage the Commission to organise a coordination meeting with all the interested parties, such as the involved Member States, Members of the European Parliament and European social partners.

We seize the opportunity to remind the Commission that the European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for Fisheries should be adequately and promptly consulted before taking any decision having socio-economic consequences.

The Commission is furthermore called to better specify to which extent the derogation will apply to the small-scale fleet and to apply this exemption to those small vessels fishing beyond the limit defining territorial waters.

For more information, please contact Philippe Alfonso – ETF Secretary for Fisheries (p.alfonso@etf-europe.org +32 2285 4584)

ENDS

Related documents:

ETF statement on Bluefin TUNA (55kb PDF)

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