The EU’s most senior court has stopped short of applying overfishing rules across all EU fish stocks in a case taken by Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) and environmental lawyers Client Earth.
The EU’s Court of Justice has ruled that EU ministers will be breaking the law if they approve overfishing of target stocks, but the court did not apply the ruling to bycatch stocks.
The case was filed by the two organisations after the EU missed its 2020 legal deadline to end overfishing.
The organisations claimed that EU ministers set fishing limits “far above undisputed scientific advice” in the north-east Atlantic that year.
The case was taken before the High Court in Ireland and referred on to Europe.
In a statement, ClientEarth marine wildlife and habitats lawyer Arthur Meeus said that “our seas are in a dire state – continuing to exploit them at levels that will eventually leave both fishers and coastal communities without fish to catch and the marine environment in jeopardy cannot go unchallenged”.
“Today’s ruling provides clarity – going forward, approving overfishing for target stocks is illegal,”Meeus said.
“However, it’s disappointing that the court did not follow the Advocate General’s opinion and has not confirmed that the obligation to end overfishing applies equally to bycatch stocks,”he said.
He was referring to an acceptance by the EU court’s senior advisor, the Advocate General, last year with the points argued in the legal challenge.
“It’s disheartening that the court failed to view the ocean as a whole and to apply the 2020 overfishing deadline across all stocks,”Meeus said.
“The ocean doesn’t think about fish in terms of stocks – making the distinction between them is arbitrary and fails to view the ocean as one living and breathing ecosystem.”
FIE director Tony Lowes said that “we would stand by Advocate General Ms Ćapeta in her opinion on this case last summer”.
“She wrote that ‘by setting a fixed deadline, the EU legislature aimed at excluding short-term socioeconomic pressures from overriding the achievement of long-term sustainability goals after 2020,” he said.
“The EU legislature dealt with this in a way similar to the ‘no more chocolate from Monday’ promise because, if Monday is not understood as a fixed deadline, one will keep eating chocolate, and Monday will never come,”Lowes said.
“We will be closely following the EU fishing limits that ministers set, going forward,” Meeus said.
“We will continue to take action as long as leaders violate ecosystems and their own promises,” he said.
FIE was represented by FP Logue solicitors John Kenny BL and James Devlin SC.