EU Court Of Auditors - European Fleets Have No Idea How Much Fish They Actually Catch - Reuters

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BRUSSELS - The European Union has no real idea of how many fish its national fleets catch each year and is failing to clamp down hard on vessels that exceed national quotas, the EU financial watchdog said on Tuesday.

The Court of Auditors said unreliable data on catches, weak inspections with no proper deterrent, as well as general fleet overcapacity were threatening fish stocks. For many species including cod, stocks had been hard hit by years of heavy exploitation. "Catch data are neither complete nor reliable and the real level of catches is thus unknown," an ECA report said.

It criticised EU governments and the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, for not doing enough to enforce the rules and stop the overfishing -- a phenomenon that international scientists have warned the EU about for years.

"If this situation continues, it will bring grave consequences not only for the natural resource, but also for the future of the fishing industry and the areas associated with it," said the analysis of the EU's six major fishing countries: Britain, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. "If the political authorities want (EU policy) to achieve its objective of sustainable exploitation of the fisheries resources, the present control, inspection and sanction systems must be strengthened considerably," it said.

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