Illegal drift net operations targeting bluefin tuna have been taken down in the Italian islands of Sicily and Ponza by undercover fisheries inspectors from Brussels, the Financial Times reports. Maria Damanaki, Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, may decide to launch infringement procedures against Italy in the European Court of Justice. Full report on the story is available directly from Financial Times (link below).
Complete drift net usage of any size has been banned in the European Union (EU) in 2002, however since 1998, about 97 million Euros has been allocated for subsidies for conversion to other gear types, according to a report, ILLEGAL, UNREPORTED AND UNREGULATED FISHING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: The case of ItalIan Illegal driftnet. The report further reveals that due to lack of transparency in allocation of EU funding mechanisms and traceability of aid to individual owners in the fishery sector, the total amounts of subsidies paid out are suspected to be much higher; however, concrete amounts are unknown.
The recent Italian crack-down of the Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activities, demonstrate that recipients of subsidies dedicated to eradicating drift nets (just one example) have been in full force, not only targeting endangered species but knowingly breaking the law and abusing European Union financial mechanisms aimed for strengthening, not breaking, any hopes for an environmentally sustainable fisheries sector. How many other corrupted systems are there at the Member State (MS) level?
The ineffectiveness, misallocation, misuse and abuse of fisheries subsidies in the European Union is rampant and unacceptable, and needs to be dealt with within this upcoming Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform, scheduled for 2013. Matters pertaining to IUU need to be urgently addressed in equal measure. It is worth mentioning that sanctions and penalties for illegal fisheries are negligible at the EU level. In many Member States fishery control mechanisms are weak and inspections rare, where many infringements are simply ignored by local authorities.
Currently, subsides within the sector of agriculture and fisheries amount to more than 40% of the total EU budget.