With the official tuna fishing season beginning tomorrow for large vessels – purse seiners – and running for four weeks until 24 June, the European Commission has reiterated its commitment to implementing international control measures during the season.

This year’s short fishing season is part of the recovery plan agreed at international level to restore blue fin tuna stocks to sustainable levels.

European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Maria Damanaki said this week: “The EU has been working relentlessly to protect blue fin tuna: we have reduced our fishing fleet, we have tightened controls and we have played a consistently active role within the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna which is responsible for managing this fishing. This helped bring the Eastern Atlantic blue fin tuna stock back from the brink of extinction. I am confident that we are on the right track.”

This year, Croatia joins Malta, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus as part of the EU’s blue fin tuna fishing fleet, meaning that the overall number of purse seine vessels has increased and the EU’s quota for 2014 has risen by five per cent to 7,939 tonnes.

These eight countries share the entire EU quota, with Spain and France having the largest parts. Maltese fishermen are entitled to catch 161 tonnes of blue fin tuna this season, much of which never reach Maltese shores.

To ensure that no overfishing is taking place, a strict control and inspection programme has been initiated that sets concrete control priorities and benchmarks. It involves a significant deployment of inspectors, patrol vessels and aircrafts coordinated by the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) and the member states concerned.

The European Commission also monitors catches and analyses vessel monitoring system data (a satellite-based control system) on a constant basis to ensure that all rules, and particularly the individual vessel’s quotas, are fully respected.

The blue fin tuna fishery is regulated by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) of which the EU member states are members. The close collaboration with EFCA, member states and other ICCAT contracting parties, means that all necessary measures are being taken to support the recovery plan for blue fin tuna stocks and its long-term sustainability.