During today’s meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Part I), the Committee decided in favour (through Qualified Majority Voting) of giving the European Union a mandate for voting in favour of the conditional listing of bluefin tuna as an Appendix I species during the meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to be held in Doha, Qatar on 13 – 25 March 2010. According to the rules of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the 27 EU Member States take a position as a single bloc in meetings of certain international organisations including CITES. A favourable vote of the 175 Members of CITES, in the CITES Conference of the Parties meeting, could bring about a ban on international trade of bluefin tuna.

Twenty-six Member States argued in favour of the inclusion of bluefin tuna in Appendix I. The EU will now be proposing that such inclusion should enter into force on a conditional basis, that is, pending an assessment of the state of the fish stocks by the scientific committee of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Nevertheless, Malta continued to argue that the most effective governance model for regulating the fishery should continue to be the ICCAT, as a regional fisheries management organisation, and not CITES which is an international environmental agreement. In this context, Malta opposed the proposal for a CITES Appendix I listing.

It is pertinent to note that Member States’opinions were sharply divided on the issue of what conditions should apply in the event of a trade ban as regards compensation for those affected and the continuation of artisanal fishing of bluefin tuna. Malta argued that a ban would have serious socio-economic implications for the Maltese traditional fisheries sector. At this stage there are not sufficient guarantees with regard to compensation from EU funds to those affected by a ban on international trade, including fishermen and farm operators. Malta insisted that any eventual compensation should not be paid out of the existing EU Fisheries funds but through a new budgetary allocation.

Under the proposed listing, Member States could continue to catch bluefin tuna only within the waters under their jurisdiction, which vary in size among different Member States which would not allow for equal fishing opportunities.