EU fisheries decision imminent as pressure grows on Thai regime

The EU is expected to decide early in the New Year, possibly as soon as next month, whether to hand Thailand’s lucrative fishing industry a 'red card'.

A 'yellow card' warning has already been issued to clean up the country's unregulated industry worth €15.3 billion in 2013, but which is sustained with slave labour.

Fresh evidence of this has come this week with the findings of an inquiry into slave labour in the Thai seafood industry.

The Associated Press investigation found that poor migrant workers and children are being sold to factories in Thailand and forced to peel shrimp that ends up in global supply chains, including those of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer.

In April, the EU gave Thailand, the world’s third-largest seafood exporter, six months to crack down on illegal fishing or face a potentially crippling trade ban on its fish imports. The deadline expired on 31 October and the EU is currently assessing whether the industry now complies with international fishing regulations.

A spokesman for the European Commission's fisheries directorate told this website: "Thailand has been engaged since April in dialogue with the Commission and received a proposed action plan to address shortcomings."

The spokesman pointed out that the country had six months to negotiate with the Commission and address its problems.   

"At this point in time, the Commission has not taken any decision and cannot envisage the outcome of the analysis.

"However, real signs of change and delivery on commitments by very early next year will be decisive in informing the Commission's decision."

More than 2,000 trapped fishermen have been freed this year as a result of ongoing investigations into slavery in the Thai seafood industry. Dozens have been arrested and there have been millions of dollars' worth of seizures.

But despite repeated promises by businesses and government to clean up the country's $7 billion seafood export industry, abuses persist, fueled by corruption and complicity among police and authorities.

British human rights activist Andy Hall, who has highlighted labour abuse in the Thai food industry, has now called on the EU to take action to ensure that money it is injecting into a UN programme to fight slave labour in Thailand is well spent.

Hall said: "The EU is now pumping millions of taxpayers' euros into the new International Labour Organisation (ILO) GLP programme to address Thai seafood slavery.

"EU citizens, taxpayers, consumers, buyers, unions and civil society groups must hold the EU and ILO accountable to deliver an effective programme that empowers migrant workers."

In October, a Thai court threw out a defamation lawsuit filed against Hall by the fruit-processing giant Natural Fruit Co. over his report on labour abuses.

On Monday, the world's largest canned tuna maker, Thai Union  Group, said any migrant labour abuse in the seafood industry was unaccepable. Meanwhile, a newly published report says Thai people are in "self-denial" about problems facing the country, including those in the fishing industry.

It talks of a "malaise" that is "epidemic" in the military, police and "probably every public institution, including the judiciary".

The study, by the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) and the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) , makes damning reading for the military junta which has run the country since a coup in May 2014 in which the military seized power from Yingluck Shinawatra, the legally elected prime minister, and suspended the constitution.

The report follows the case of former Thai military chief Major General Paween Pongsirin who was appointed to investigate human trafficking but now says he fears attacks from senior  Thai figures implicated in the trade.

It states: "Inefficiency permeates Thai institutions from top to bottom because their personnel are, by and large, recruited, socialised, promoted and molded not by professional standards but by nepotism, connections, favouritism and the personal and hierarchical relations that have been in place for generations."

The "resultant inefficiency" has "serious consequences" with examples including the EU's warning to the Thai fishing industry and the downgrading of the Thai aviation industry by the International Civil Aviation Organisation due to its failure to meet safety standards.

The ISEAS/NIDA report adds: "In every case, it appears that the relevant Thai authority is aware of the problems but has been negligent for years. The Thai police are notorious in their unprofessional handling even of major cases that are of international interest, let alone everyday cases that hold purely domestic interest.

Corruption, it says, is "condoned and encouraged".

"Putting blame solely on individual politicians for corruption while ignoring the ingrained problem in social institution, especially by the military and government bureaucracy, Thais are in self-denial again."