Ian Duncan MEP, Conservative MEP for Scotland, said through the decoupling by the EU Commission of the joint programs of the discards ban and the landing obligations, fishermen will be in the impossible position of breaking the law regardless of their practice.
The first EU discard ban will come into play on Jan. 1, 2015, affecting pelagic fisheries across Europe.
Setting aside the fact that the clean Scottish pelagic fishery is in little need of a discard ban, the problem is that the landing obligation rules, which give legal underpinning to the discard ban, will not even be voted upon by the European Parliament until the end of February.
It
