The European Commission published the third edition of the Common Fisheries Policy Scoreboard for 2004. For the first time this includes data from the new Member States. The priority that aried from the scoreboard is to prevent overfishing. Indeed, the Court of Justice has recently ruled against Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Finland and Sweden for overshooting their quotas. The number of quotas overshot declined slightly from 2% in 2003 to 1.8% in 2004. In 2002 the overshot quota percentage stood at 3%. The Member States with the worst records on overfishing in 2004 was Ireland followed closely by Spain. Malta along with Slovenia and Cyprus, failed to send any reports.
"Failure to enforce fisheries measures works against the interests of fishermen as it leads to overfishing, depleted fish stocks, smaller catches and shrinking incomes. Member States must urgently work with stakeholders, the Commission and the European fisheries control agency, which will be soon up and running, to improve overall compliance", commented Fisheries Commissioner, Joe Borg. Joe Borg is the Maltese Commissioner within the European Commission.
According to the commission only Belgium and Sweden met their obligations concerning fishing quotas in 2004, compared to three countries in 2003. The proper management of fishing effort and the number of permissible fishing days is crucial to prevent overfishing. Regrettably, reporting in this area continues to deteriorate.
Europa.com reported how in turn, compliance with reporting obligations to the Community Fleet Register has improved while new Member States have fully complied with these obligations. However, Greece, Spain, France, Italy and Portugal again failed to submit the full information required. Progress was also registered in the requisites of d re-measuring of fishing vessels. Those which have yet to complete this process include Spain, France, Italy, Poland and, to a lesser extent, the UK.
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