Thailand approaching EU 'Red Card' over illegal fishing

Photo: Kittiphum Sringammuang, Channel NewsAsia Indo-China Bureau

Thailand is facing a race against the clock to avoid a potentially crippling embargo on fish exports to the European Union. Maritime commission inspectors from the EU are currently reviewing the compliance progress and unless Thailand cleans up its fishing industry, it risks a 'Red Card' export ban.

EU vessels could also be prevented from fishing in Thai waters. A decision is expected next month.

Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Commissioner Karmenu Vella urged the Thai authorities to seriously respect and comply with international law, warning that failure to take "strong action" against illegal fishing will carry "consequences."

In April, the Commission issued Thailand with a 'Yellow Card' for non-compliance on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) regulations which stipulate that only fish certified as legally caught can enter the EU.

The Yellow Card to Thailand is the most high-profile action taken against IUU fishing, under a 2010 regulation against such practises.

With a possible Red Card imminent, Thailand has, according to one EU source, so far failed to take actions on all of the items required to ensure compliance with the IUU regulations.

The Commission source told this website: "Thailand has taken action on about 80 per cent of the items but to avert sanctions, as a minimum, we would expect compliance with all items, including control and monitoring measures and enforcement. In terms of compliance, it faces a race against the clock."

While Thailand authorities are reportedly making efforts to comply with IUU regulations, this may be too little, too late.

Should the reforming efforts not improve, the commission source said the EU could resort to banning fisheries from Thailand, as has happened in the past with Belize, Guinea,Cambodia and Sri Lanka

Seafood exports account for about 10 per cent of Thailand’s total agriculture gross domestic product and seafood exports to the EU are valued at between €575 million to €730m.

Thailand is the world’s largest producer of canned tuna and a growing exporter of fishery products to European consumers.

An export ban would represent a devastating blow to an already-crippled economy.

An alternative, which some see as more likely, would see the EU opting to continue dialogue with the Thai authorities, in other words maintaining the status quo, in the hope that this will make them eventually take the necessary corrective measures.

If the situation is deemed to be satisfactory, the Yellow Card is withdrawn and Thailand is given a Green Card.

Tony Long, director of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Ending Illegal Fishing project, said the EU had shown “global leadership” in implementing its tough illegal fishing regulation against “such a significant fishing state”.

The EU was represented by a two-man delegation from the European at the annual meeting of the ASEAN Inter Parliamentary Assembly (IPA) in Kuala Lumpur, on 8-10 September. The Thai fisheries issue was not discussed directly but human rights and democracy in Thailand and other ASEAN countries was on the formal agenda.

The EU insists that dialogue and trade and economic agreements with ASEAN countries,including Thailand, are conditional upon respect for international human rights and democracy.

A Parliament official who accompanied centre right MEP Werner Langen, who chairs the assembly's ASEAN delegation, and Socialist deputy Marc Tarabella, its vice chair, at the IPA conference last weekend, said: "Thailand was not discussed directly but one did sense there was not any real appetite among any of the ASEAN nations to link human rights to trade deals with the EU."

Tarabella told this website it was “important” that the EU seeks to uphold standards in the fishing industry and also tackle problems of over fishing around the world. He also voice dspecific concerns about labour rights in the Thai fishing sector which he branded as “close to slavery”.

This was the subject of a series of articles on lawlessness on the high seas in the New York Times which stated: "While forced labor exists throughout the world, nowhere is the problem more pronounced than in the South China Sea, especially in the Thai fishing fleet, which faces an annual shortage of about 50,000 mariners, based on United Nations estimates."

The article on 'The Outlaw Ocean' added: "The shortfall is primarily filled by using migrants, mostly from Cambodia and Myanmar. Many of them are lured across the border by traffickers only to become so-called sea slaves in floating labor camps."

According to US-based non-governmental organization Freedom House, six out of ten ASEAN member states, including Thailand, are ‘not free’ while a new report by the ILO and the Asia Foundation says that children in Thailand's seafood processing industry are more exposed to workplace hazards and twice as likely to sustain injuries.

More children in the seafood industry worked with fire, gas or flames compared to other industries, it said. Some 19.4% of children in those industries reported workplace injuries compared to 8.4% in others.Rights group have accused the Thai seafood industry of using slave labour.

Fraser Cameron, of the EU-Asia Centre, supports the EU in its tough stance with Thailand: "Illegal fishing is a big issue and, as it affects EU interests, it is only right and proper that the EU responds. Conditionality is written into the Lisbon Treaty so the EU has to take democracy and human rights into account."

Cameron, a seasoned EU watcher, is also critical of the Thai authorities for once again delaying elections: "It is very unfortunate that the process towards restoration of democracy in Thailand has been slowed down –again."

Further comment came from UK Independence Party MEP Roger Helmer, who was a resident and worked in Thailand from 1980-84, who said: "I think that in principle the EU has a right to impose sanctions on imports of Thai tuna if the European Commission is satisfied that Thailand is substantially in breach of international rules."

He added: "However, I note that Thailand is moving to improve matters and seek to conform so perhaps carrots would be more appropriate than sticks."

A damning indictment of working conditions in the Thai seafood industry comes in an analysis by Fairfood International, a respected NGO: "Serious human and labour rights abuses continue to be a problem in the Thai seafood and fisheries industry and the industry does not provide a real living wage for workers. Wages are further undermined by the overall financial burden on workers for work-related costs such as recruitment, equipment and repatriation funds, which are too high and not fairly shared between workers and employers."

The NGO recently issued a list of recommendations designed to improve the situation but says it remains doubtful that Thailand will ever be able to attain Western standards, adding: "There can be no sustainable, long term changes in working conditions without freedom of association and collective bargaining - both of which continue to be notably absent from the industry -and there continues to be a lack of respect for the rule of law and poor monitoring and enforcement of legal standards."

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