Britain’s largest nature conservation charity has blasted the EU’s “outrageous” attempts to overturn a post-Brexit UK fishing boat ban.
The RSPB has taken aim at Brussels which has picked a fight over a UK ban on sand eel fishing which aims to protect marine habitats.
Katie-jo Luxton, the RSPB’s director of conservation, said: “This outrageous challenge by the EU Commission on the UK’s Sandeel fisheries closure is seeing the future of beautiful birds like our much-loved Puffins kicked around like a political football.
“While some EU countries seem hell-bent on hoovering up Sandeels on an industrial scale to feed to livestock, we believe they should be restoring marine ecosystems and nourishing baby Pufflings.”
Almost 62% of seabird species are in decline across the UK, with overfishing and climate change having decimated the Sandeel stocks many rely on.
The European Commission has lodged its first formal complaint under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) against the UK government for banning sandeel fishing in its waters.
Ms Luxton said: “The EU should look to its own stated ambition on marine restoration, recognise that these measures support this and back down.
“The UK Government must stand firm on the Sandeel closure across the English North Sea and all of Scottish waters.
“With species like our seabirds in steep decline we need to be doing so much more to safeguard the future of our wildlife, not stamping on the green shoots of progress as soon as it is made.”
Many trawlers operating out of Boulogne, in France, depend on catches from the 13 areas subject to the restrictions in Britain.
Each year, industrial trawling, undertaken almost exclusively by EU vessels, removes hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sandeels from the North Sea.
Sandeels are in demand for their oil and use as animal feed for livestock and farmed salmon
It is hoped that the UK ban will boost seabird populations which are dependent on the fish for a significant part of their diet, like puffins.
In an online statement, the EU has requested consultations with the UK under the TCA dispute settlement mechanism.
It said: “The EU and the UK committed to cooperate in ensuring that fishing activities for shared stocks in their waters are environmentally sustainable and contribute to achieving economic and social benefits with all adopted fisheries management measures to be proportionate, non-discriminatory, and based on the best available scientific advice.”
