Fishermen rise against EU demands for tighter controls

Fishing boats lay idle in port at Samut Songkhram. (Bangkok Post file photo)

SAMUT SONGKHRAM: Thousands of fishermen and business operators in Samut Songkhram have launched a protest against the European Union, expressing anger at the EU's harsh approach to illegal fishing, action they suspect is aimed mainly at the military government itself.

The 3,000-strong group is demanding the government review the measures introduced over the last two years to satisfy the bloc's demands for better controls over the Thai fishing sector.

They do not care about a possible EU ban on imports of marine products from Thailand if it falls short of the union's fishing standards, according to Matichon Online News.

While the attempts to cope with the EU's concerns over illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing (IUU) were well intended, some of the legal measures introduced had a disastrous impact on the fishing industry. The damage amounted to many billions of baht, Mongkhon Sukcharoenthana, chairman of the National Fisheries Association of Thailand, said on Thursday.

He led a large gathering of black-clad protesters at a fishing market in Muang district of this coastal province in the early hours on Thursday. Their shirts bore the slogan "Stop Threatening Thailand" with the letters EU crossed out in red.

The disgruntled businessmen and workers are aware Thailand may be penalised if it fails to tackle IUU at a significant level approved by the European bloc, but they argue the future risk cannot be compared with the losses they are encountering as a result of new stricter regulations.

"We've run out of patience," Mr Mongkhon said. It was "beyond our capacity" to fulfill the EU's demands.

He said more than 1,000 trawlers operating outside Thai waters had already been bankrupted. Others working within Thai waters had seen their numbers drop from 40,000 to a little over 10,000.

Up to 3,500 of these 10,000 boats could not set to sea because they lacked crews, he added.

The situation had been costing business about a billion baht every month for the last two years. The damage to the fishing sector was at least 500 billion baht, Mr Mongkhon said.

The problem goes back to 2015 when the EU gave Thailand a "yellow card", or a final warning, for its failure to effectively stop IUU fishing. A ban on the export of processed seafood to Europe is likely if the country fails to fix the shortcomings.

The government enforced strict legal controls to bring the fishing sector into line, including prohibiting destructive fishing gear, setting up a Vessel Monitoring System and enforcing a royal decree on fishing in 2015 to weed out illegal activities.

One impact has been many trawler operators have had to close down temporarily to get things right. Immigrant workers have lost their jobs and confidence in getting future work. Many operators as a consequence ended up with a labour shortage.

Mr Mongkhon said he did not believe an EU ban on Thai seafood would be a big worry, because a large part of the catch was currently consumed domestically.

The group was not calling on the government to stop its efforts to stamp out illegal fishing practices, he said. They wanted authorities to work "for the sake of Thai fishermen, not the EU".

Mr Mongkhon suspected the EU may have a hidden agenda behind its demands, fuelled by its dissatisfaction with the current, unelected military government.

The fisheries association chairman said they would continue their campaign against the European bloc. In addition to a massive protest by fishermen countrywide, they would campaign for a boycott of European-made products.