On 10 November, the European Commission took a further step in its dispute with France over the quality of national controls on tuna fishing operations.
On 22 September, the Commission sent a reasoned opinion to France on the grounds that the French system for collecting, validating and compiling catch data had serious shortcomings, particularly on the issue of the 10% margin of tolerance per fish species. The problems relate to France’s compliance with its obligations regarding the control of tuna vessels.
The European Commission confirmed to EUROPE on Wednesday 16 November that it had adopted a decision six days earlier confirming a failure by France to fulfil its obligations under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). This implementing act enables the Commission to fulfil its obligation under Article 100 Paragraph 2 of the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) Regulation.
This article stipulates that before interrupting “the time limit for payment of a claim”, the European Commission shall adopt implementing acts recognising the existence of evidence indicating a failure to fulfil obligations under the CFP. The European Commission must bring this evidence to the attention of the Member State concerned and the latter shall be given the opportunity to submit its comments within a reasonable period of time. France has yet to respond to the European Commission.
Showdown over an appointment at Europêche. In addition, the NGO BLOOM and Corporate Europe Observatory(CEO) announced on Wednesday 16 November that they had filed a formal complaint with the EU transparency register against the French tuna lobby Orthongel and the Europêche organisation.
These NGOs believe that there is ‘collusion’ between the French public authorities and the tuna lobbies, as the person in charge of the tuna fleets for the French government has taken over the leadership of the ‘tuna group’ of the EU trade organisation Europêche, ‘without respecting the French legal waiting period of three years’.
Europêche and Orthongel, for their part, denounced “a slanderous disinformation campaign by NGOs” following the appointment of this person as director of the ‘tuna group’ within Europêche.
Link to the infringement procedure against France: https://aeur.eu/f/43f (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)