Starting Monday, March 31, the European Commission will kick off a week of negotiations on the draft free trade agreement (FTA) between the European Union and Thailand.
These discussions, interrupted for several years and relaunched a couple of years ago, are causing concern in the European tuna industry. Europêche, the representative body for the fishing industry in Europe, is calling for the exclusion of tuna products from this agreement.
Thailand is the world's largest producer and exporter of tuna, with an annual production of about 470,000 tonnes of canned and prepared tuna.
Currently, an average of 10,000 tonnes are exported to the EU each year, subject to a 24 per cent tariff. If the FTA was to include tuna products, the derogation of these taxes would automatically lead to a massive influx of imports, given the considerable export potential of the Thai sector.
The impact would be immediate on: the European sector, especially tuna fleets, faced with increased and unfair competition; and low quality of products in supermarkets, with an influx of seafood with lower social, environmental and control standards.
In the ultra-competitive global tuna market, the European fleet of tuna purse seiners is recognised as a model of sustainability and responsibility. The fleet respects strict quotas, is monitored 24/7 by VMS, systematically embarks scientific observers meaning 100 per cent observer coverage and applies stringent control, monitoring and control regulation.
Besides, the fleet is also certified by MSC label, as well as AENOR (APR) and AFNOR norms, respectively the highest environmental and social standards. Those rules and standards make in the most expensive tuna fleet to run in the world.
However, the EU tuna fleet is facing significant challenges, as evidenced by the recent shutdown of two relevant companies (Via Océan – formerly Saupiquet – and Nicra 7) in 2024. These companies have to compete in international waters and markets with non-EU fleets that do not respect the same standards, or even engage in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
"Tuna loins and cans processed in Thailand from low-standard Asian fisheries pose a direct threat to sustainable European fleets, which face higher costs due to their rigorous control, social, and environmental standards," said Xavier Leduc, President of the Europêche Tuna Group.
"A free trade agreement with Thailand allowing duty-free tuna products into the EU would only deepen the existing imbalance, further disadvantaging European fleets and undermining fair competition."
On the other hand, Thailand has worrying structural shortcomings. Its processing industry imports whole tuna massively from countries with opaque practices in terms of sustainability and sanitary compliance; and it has failed to implement the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 188, major international conventions on human rights and work at sea, and to ratify major other ones.
Also, the European Commission's latest audit in 2023 highlighted persistent flaws in health and food safety, revealing Thailand's inability to ensure standards that comply with European requirements.
European fisheries are coming up against the EU's paradoxes: while Brussels continues to impose increasingly restrictive regulations on its own companies, it simultaneously allows the import of products that do not meet these same standards.
Faced with this observation, Europêche calls on the European Union to exclude tuna products from the draft free trade agreement with Thailand and maintain a strict rules of origin. This will help preserve the European tuna sector and guarantee a level playing field.
"Under current regulations, the EU cannot block low-standard tuna entering [the] EU market—but it must not let it in duty-free," said Anne-France Mattlet, Director of the Europêche Tuna Group.
