Cambodia’s on the fishing naughty list (Image: Jeff Rotman/Getty Images)

The European Union, the world’s biggest seafood importer, has banned fish from three countries because they do not police their fisheries. The 28 EU fisheries ministers decreed in Brussels this week that EU vessels may no longer fish off Belize, Cambodia or Guinea, and the EU may not import those countries’ catches.

Europe’s menus are in no danger: it buys less than €10 million worth of seafood a year from the three, barely 0.5 per cent of its total imports. But the move is a shot across the bows of the big fishers, such as South Korea.

The EU calculates that €1 billion of its yearly seafood imports come from “illegal, unreported and unregulated” catches, which damage fish stocks, depress prices and cause Europe to lose thousands of fishing jobs. In 2010, the EU enacted laws allowing it to pressure countries that support pirate fisheries.


In 2012 the European Commission warned eight countries that they were failing to set or enforce catch limits or monitor fishing. Fishing boats registered in these countries effectively work with no real limits on their catch. It took five countries off this list after they improved, but the three censured this week – Belize, Cambodia and Guinea – “failed to show real commitment to tackling the problem“. Last December, it started the same process against South Korea and Ghana, which together sell more than €200 million of seafood to the EU annually.

This week’s decision shows it means business. “No one else’s laws permit such bans,” says Steve Trent of the Environmental Justice Foundation, a UK-based pressure group. “US legislators are watching closely.”