The battle over measures to conserve stocks of bluefin tuna in European waters has flared up once more in the European Commission, with  departments sharply divided over whether the prized fish should be subject to a temporary trade ban.

The EU has to take a common position on whether bluefin tuna should be included on an international list of hundreds of endangered species that require protection.

The college of commissioners was meant to take a final decision yesterday (13 January), but the item was dropped because Stavros Dimas, the environment commissioner, who favours a temporary ban, is at loggerheads with Joe Borg, the fisheries commissioner, who opposes it. Neither of the commissioners has signalled any willingness to compromise.

A meeting between Borg and Dimas broke up yesterday (13 January) with no apparent progress.

The Commission is running out of time to end its divisions as the EU must prepare a common position ahead of a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) on 13-25 March. 

An internal Commission memo seen by European Voice had argued that the EU needed to reach a position “at the earliest stage possible in January 2010”.

The Commission’s president, José Manuel Barroso, has so far preferred to leave the two commissioners to fight it out.

Last autumn, Borg agreed to support a Commission proposal in favour of listing bluefin tuna on the CITES list. But the Commission’s proposal was subsequently rejected by six Mediterranean member states: Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain.

This meant that the Commission had to draft a new proposal. Borg then withdrew his support for a trade ban. His officials argue that new restrictions on bluefin tuna fishing in 2010 make the CITES listing unnecessary, but Dimas’s department thinks the fish remains under threat.

In November 2009, the governments who make up the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) agreed on new measures aimed at protecting bluefin tuna. These include lower total catch allowances, more reductions in the fishing fleet and better reporting of catches. Borg thinks these measures render a trade ban unnecessary.

The Borg-Dimas split mirrors that between the fishing industry and conservationists.

Conservationists are calling for a trade ban to allow bluefin tuna breathing space to recover.

The EU is intending this year to begin reform of its common fisheries policy, and WWF’s Sergei Tudela has described the mooted ban as a “a golden opportunity” to demonstrate its support for sustainable fishing.

• The French government is also wrangling over its position. The Matignon will convene a new meeting between the agriculture, ecology and finance ministries after they failed to reach an agreement on Monday (11 January). President Nicolas Sarkozy said last year that France would support a ban. But Sarkozy’s position was then contradicted by the vote of his fisheries official in Brussels last year.

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