The European Commission has ditched plans for legal action against five member states over enforcement of the discard ban
European Commission Drops Possible Legal Action Against Five Member States for Failing to Police Ban on Discarding Fish
According to a report in the Financial Times, the European Commission has abandoned its efforts to crack down on the wasteful practice of discarding fish, deciding not to pursue legal action against five member states accused of failing to enforce overfishing rules.
The European Commission had initially opened infringement proceedings against France, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Belgium in 2021 for not complying with the ban on discarding unwanted fish.
The Financial Times reports that business groups and member states have recently accused Brussels of weakening its enforcement on the discarding of fish. The practice, which involves throwing unwanted fish overboard, is banned under EU regulations to ensure that all caught fish, even those caught accidentally, are brought back to shore and counted. The commission’s decision to drop the cases quietly ends these legal warnings.
The five states had been issued with formal notices, the first step in an infringement procedure, for failing to control their fleets to meet the landing obligation. Some Brussels diplomats suggest that the decision to drop the cases acknowledges the widespread lack of enforcement of overfishing rules across all EU states with fishing industries.
“With something like the landing obligation, if [the commission] took these five member states to court, then they would have to take all coastal member states to court,” a diplomat explained. “Nobody is controlling or enforcing the landing obligation. There is widespread non-compliance.”
The commission did not provide comments on its reasons for closing the cases. This decision comes amid broader criticisms that Brussels has been softening enforcement across the single market. In recent years, the number of legal actions against infringements has sharply declined.
Arthur Meeus, a fisheries lawyer at the environmental charity ClientEarth, commented on the commission’s failure to enforce ocean protection rules. “Every year, catch limits are set too high, and huge numbers of fish, sea birds, dolphins, and other protected species are unlawfully caught in fishing nets as bycatch,” he said.
The commission has expressed concerns over member states’ compliance with the landing obligation, noting that audits have revealed significant misreporting of actual fish quantities landed. This misreporting compromises the scientific data needed for the EU to introduce new policies and identify areas of concern.
In her recent speech, Ursula von der Leyen, beginning her second term as commission president, pledged to safeguard the world’s oceans through a European “Oceans Pact.” Her programme emphasized boosting the blue economy and ensuring good governance and sustainability of the oceans.
Steve Trent, chief executive of the non-profit Environmental Justice Foundation, criticized the commission’s decision, saying, “To ensure this commitment to the ocean is not undermined, it is vital that member states are held accountable and fully implement their obligations to control their fleets. We have not seen any evidence that the cases were dropped due to non-compliance being corrected.”
Critics of the landing obligation argue that the policy itself contributes to overfishing by requiring increased fishing quotas to account for all unwanted and undersized fish that must be brought back to shore. “[Fisheries] are discarding undersized catches and using these extra quotas to land catches of optimal market value,” an EU diplomat noted. “As a result, fishing mortality is higher.”