A report by the EU IUU Fishing Coalition, made up of the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), Oceana, The Nature Conservancy, The Pew Charitable Trusts and WWF EU, reveals that EU import controls and inadequate enforcement of existing legislation by Member States are allowing illegal seafood products to enter the market. The old continent is the world’s largest importer of fishery products and yet the analysis reveals that some countries have failed to comply with even the most basic controls on imports. For example, In 2022 and 2023, Italy only verified one catch certificate each year. Portugal verified five a year between 2020 and 2023, rejecting only two shipments.
The analysis, which examined the application of the EU Regulation on fishing IUU between 2020 and 2023, reveals that some countries have systematically failed to comply with even the most basic controls on imports of fishery products. This exposes them to a high risk of importing products associated with crimes against people and the environment. Several Member States are neglecting to properly investigate shipments of fishery products from high-risk countries by failing to continually verify catch certificates intended to prove that the fish has been caught legally.
According to the report, although Spain inspects more than 70% of direct landings, its performance undermined by the lax approach of other States. This patchwork of control measures creates opportunities for illegal fishery products to reach the EU market through the weakest entry points.
Furthermore, the Coalition highlights that, although the digitization of import controls through the CATCH system is a positive step, technological solutions alone cannot resolve systemic failures, such as the need to increase physical inspections of direct landings. “Fifteen years after the EU Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Regulation came into force, although it has had multiple positive effects, Member States are still not doing enough to protect consumers, legal fishers and our oceans,” comments Steve Trent, CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation.
For its part, Thomas Walsh, coordinator of the EU IUU Fishing Coalition, said: ‘Across the EU, the number of imports denied entry to the market remains surprisingly low, even in major seafood importing countries such as Italy and Portugal. Added to this situation is the general non-compliance by some Member States with their legal obligation to inspect at least 5% of direct landings from non-EU vessels. The most worrying case is that of the Netherlands, which continues to receive large volumes of fishery products from high-risk flag States, such as Russia, and yet they do not meet this minimum inspection requirement.