Europe's fishermen busted their annual catch allowances for the third year in a row in 2004, risking legal action and hefty fines for persistent violations of EU fisheries rules, the European Commission said on Thursday according to Reuters. Overfishing is not a new phenomenon in the European Union. In 2005, its highest court slapped a fine of 20 million euros on France for quota-busting in a case dating back to 1991, with extra six-month penalties for persistently flouting rules that aim to protect dwindling stocks of key species like cod. Although the average quota overshoot was only 1.8 percent in 2004, down from 2.0 percent the previous year, some countries exceeded their annual allowance by nearly 70 percent. Ireland and Spain were singled out for their consistently worst records. In 2004, Portugal reported haddock catches that were 68 percent higher than allocated, Belgian fishermen exceeded their quota of sole by 25 percent and Spain's fleet caught 20 percent more anglerfish that it should have done. In Ireland, the exotic deepwater black scabbardfish was overfished by 16 percent above quota, the Commission said. "If there is no monitoring or control, illegal fishing flourishes. With overfishing, the winners are few and the losers are many," Commission spokeswoman Mireille Thom told reporters. "It is quite disappointing to see again ... that member states will need to do more to tackle overfishing," she said. Each December, EU fisheries ministers negotiate with Commission experts on national quota allocations for species and area for the following year. The aim is to allow fishing fleets to make a living but protect stocks endangered by years of overfishing by making quotas small enough so younger fish have a chance to reproduce. In its annual assessment of EU compliance with fisheries laws and quotas, the Commission said the number of violations of the rules rose in 2004. The most common problem was overfishing. "Clearly, detection rates and the level of fines applied in such cases are failing to deter wrongdoers," it's report said.
