European fishing curbs to save cod and haddock from extinction may be ineffective as EU states are failing to halt illegal fishing, the European Commission said today.
The EU executive said 75 per cent of the legal cases it has opened against member states for breaking fishing laws were due to overfishing, with Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands having the worst record in 2003.
Governments are supposed to enforce and police EU fishing quotas - limits on how much fishermen can catch - stopping them from breaking the law.
"Commission inspectors continue to observe failings in the control and enforcement activities of member states, particularly in the monitoring of catches and landings," it said in a statement.
"This means that undeclared landings, misreporting (reporting catches in an area other than the one concerned) or under-reporting of catches can go undetected."
Though EU states reported a 17 per cent drop in illegal fishing from 2001 to 2002, the Commission fears the data is incomplete and hides the true level of black or illegal fish landed in Europe.