Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishery practices are behind the stern warning issued on Thursday by the 28-nation EU, reports the Associated Press.
Two EU officials told the AP that Thailand enacted legislation last year to curb illegal fisheries practices, but there has been little or no action in the way of follow-up to the regulations. Even with ongoing talks between the EU and Thai officials, the illegal practices continue although Thai authorities insist they are working hard to change the practices.
“We continue to have serious concerns about the steps taken by the Thai authorities to fight illegal and unregulated fishing activities. This means that further action by the EU Commission cannot be ruled out,” said one official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks, according to the Daily Mail.
The European Union has given Thailand a number of chances to clean up its act. On April 21, 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that the EU had given Thailand six months to curb illegal fishing. At the same time, a similar threat of a seafood import ban was removed from the Philippines and South Korea.
EU officials told Thailand last year they would join Cambodia, the only Southeast Asian country on the EU’s “black list” of countries banned from exporting seafood to the EU. Thailand is the world’s third largest exporter of seafood, behind China and Norway.
The EU calls the warning a “yellow card,” and with this warning, there are no sanctions. Thailand would be well advised to take some serious action on the cleaning up of its fisheries because the EU is a lucrative market. The news today came after the EU removed Sri Lanka from the yellow card list after four years.
At the same time as removing Sri Lanka from the threat of a ban, the EU placed Kiribati, Sierra Leone and Trinidad and Tobago on the yellow card list for not cooperating. Thailand accounts for 8.1 percent of global seafood exports worth between 575 million and 730 million euros ($650 million and $825 million) annually. v
One particularly distasteful practice is the use of slave labor in Thailand’s fisheries. The Associated Press exposed the illegal practice after conducting a two-year investigation of the labor abuses. The resulting story led to over 2,000 slave laborers being set free, the arrests of a dozen alleged traffickers and the seizure of millions of dollars’ worth of seafood and vessels.
“Lately, we have been receiving less evidence of reform from them and more evidence from third countries and NGOs,” said one official. The talks are to begin again next month in Brussels.
