CFP

EU council meetings are rarely something that the vast majority of us get excited about. These meetings are when the representatives from each of the EU governments get together, to discuss specific topics. Usually it’s the relevant minister who goes, but they are effectively deputising for their government.

Our ship, the Arctic Sunrise is currently in Mauritanian waters, to highlight the problems of overfishing emptying African seas. Vast factory-style fishing boats are trawling out fish at an alarming rate and decimating local ecosystems and livelihoods in the process.

Organised crime seems to pay quite handsomely, especially if you manage to be part of a profession that seems to be beyond reproach. That can surely be the only conclusion to draw from the group of 17 fishermen who were fined a mere £720 thousand in court today for an overfishing scam that effectively stole £63 MILLION of fish from our seas.

In the same way that discarding perfecting good fish, dead or dying back into sea is a disgrace, so is the attitude of many European fisheries ministers charged with ensuring sustainable fish stocks and viable fishing communities. For years they have ignored the obvious: that if they negotiated policies that allowed fish stocks to recover and championed low impact fishing, they would create more jobs.