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Eurothon Accuses PNG In Euro Parlaiment Of IUUff

4 July 2011 European Union

By Atuna

The European tuna industry organization Eurothon pleaded last week, before the European Parliament, to call off on the partnership agreement allowing Papua New Guinea to export its tuna products duty-free into Europe. This due to the fact that, according to Eurothon, PNG has all the ‘necessary conditions’ of being a country where illegally caught tuna is processed.

Eurothon president Juan Vieites, who is also president of the Spanish Association of Tuna Canners (ANFACO), warned that the special status for PNG is a serious danger for the European canning industry. In previous months, Spanish canners already complained that PNG is working to build an important capacity of cannery factories that might threaten the Galician tuna industry.

In its statement, Eurothon is suggesting that PNG will function as a hub for processed tuna to enter the EU market on ‘unsurpassable’ conditions that will destabilize the balance of the world tuna sector and the EU canneries. This due to the intentions of PNG to encourage foreign investments through the creation of a special marine industrial zone, where canneries, docks and storage facilities for tuna products will be built. According to his statements, Vieites estimated that the production of PNG will double, reaching 700,000 tons of tuna, to the detriment of the European industry. Until now, PNG exported only limited amounts to the EU.

According to the agreement, PNG will be granted special treatment in the European Union’s fishery sector that allows the country to export processed tuna products, of which the fish originates from tuna vessels carrying any national flag. Normally the duty free rule for tuna imports within the EU is only available to selected developing countries that have vessels which match the so-called Rules of Origin, by which these vessels must carry the same flag as the country the fish is processed in, or exported from to the EU.

Although the deal excludes tuna delivered by IUU vessels, Eurothon is suggesting that PNG might become a center from which illegally caught tuna is imported in the EU. It is ‘totally counterproductive’, the Eurothon statement says, to the new European rules against IUU catch if countries -‘which own all the necessary conditions of being a center of IUU fishing’- are allowed an easy access to the EU market.

Eurothon says the agreement is a thread to the employment, not only in the EU, but also for the GSP+ and ACP countries that already have special agreements with the EU for tuna exports.

 

Interesting detail is that Spanish processors were recently invited by the PNG Government to invest in their country and to benefit from their rich tuna resources in their waters. But no interest was shown. The only interest shown at the meeting was by a Spanish fleet operator to obtain fishing rights to fish tuna. He had specifically no interest in investing in onshore jobs for PNG people.

Most tuna in Spanish canneries nowadays is cleaned by Ecuadorians, who have -at a large scale- replaced the Spanish women living in Galicia. The tuna in Spanish cans is exported in massive amounts from Ecuador, as cleaned pre-cooked loins from often Spanish owned canneries in the cities of Manta and Posorja. The same happens in Spanish owned facilities in Guatemala and El Salvador.

Eurothon never raised any objections against the imports from any of these countries and the effect they had on jobs of Spanish workers.

Thai Union, through its ownership of MW Brand, is also a member of Eurothon. Thai Union is also a major investor in a new tuna plant in Lae, PNG.
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