Juan Manuel Vieters, secretary-general of the Spanish National Association of Fish and Shellfish Cannerers (ANF ACO-CECOPESCA), urged EU authorities to combat and eradicate "illegal, undeclared and unregulated fishing" more effectively. According to ANF ACO-CECOPESCA, EU authorities should introduce more stringent regulatory regulations and regulatory measures to ensure a relatively stable development of the European market for canned fish and shellfish products.

 

According to the head of the ANF ACO-CECOPESCA, what we have said about cracking down on IUU illegal fishing is not just a strong blow to illegal fishing itself; more importantly, we should resolutely prevent IUU illegal fishing products from entering the EU through indirect, or disguised trading activities. In the EU market, it has become the finished product of aquatic processing. At present, the EU has also become the world's leading aquatic product consumption market, and with the increasing consumption of aquatic products, canned tuna has become one of the most popular aquatic products in the EU. Among them, canned fish and shellfish produced in Spain, especially canned tuna, are mainly used for supply to the European Union market, which seems to have become the world's similar products in the same target market of the main competitors.

 

In view of this, according to ANF ACO-CECOPESCA director Juan Manuel Viettes, in recent years, the Spanish tuna canning industry has been subjected to unfair competition from the same imports from third countries, its momentum has become increasingly strong. He said it was crucial that the same canned tuna in the EU market should be in a level playing field, but that involved canned tuna and its raw materials imported duty-free from third countries through preferential tariff treatment. Such unfair competition, he argues, will inevitably lead to the loss of competitiveness of the EU's own canned fish and shellfish products, with the consequent loss of more local employment opportunities and more adverse effects on the sustainable development of the EU member states in economic and social fields.