The Polish Fisheries Minister Rafal Wiechecki recommends the Polish government to take the European Commission to the European court of justice, after it ordered Poland to halt trawling for cod in the eastern Baltic Sea.
On Monday 6 August the EU Commission ordered Poland to stop trawling for cod in the eastern Baltic Sea, after large discrepancies between catch figures reported to Brussels by the Polish authorities and those provided by EU inspectors. The figures delivered by the EU inspectors relieved that Poland had exhausted its entire cod quota in the eastern Baltic for 2007.
Rafal Wiechecki claims that Poland had only used 70 percent of its quota. “We believe the European Commission’s decision was based on unreliable figures and may lead to the destruction of the fishing industry in Poland”, says Wiechecki after meeting EU Fisheries Commissioner Borg, adding he would recommend that the Polish government take the Commission to the European Court of Justice over its decision.
Rafal Wiechecki was nominated head of Maritime Ministry in May 2006, at 28 years of age being the youngest minister in Polish history since the end of World War I. The Polish Maritime Ministry was formed in 2006 when it also took over the responsibility of fisheries administration from the Ministry of Agriculture.