“We want to eradicate the horrendous practice of shark finning and protect sharks better,” said EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki in a statement.
Shark fin is a prized ingredient for soup in China and growth in the country’s middle-class has sent global demand soaring.
Accurate estimates are difficult to come by. The UN says 10 million sharks a year – almost 30,000 a day – are currently being finned. But conservationists say the true figure is much higher.
Meanwhile, several shark species are in danger of extinction. EU waters, in particular those of Spain and Portugal, are among the world’s largest suppliers of shark fin to the Asian markets.
The new rule, which is enters into force immediately, declares: “All vessels fishing in EU waters and all EU vessels fishing anywhere in the world will have to land sharks with the fins still attached.”
The idea is that fishermen will not want to lug around low-value shark carcasses just to fin them when they get to shore and will switch to catching different fish.
The fishing industry, meanwhile, is less happy.
“We are very surprised and disappointed,” said Guy Vernaeve of Europeche, the EU association of fishing enterprises. “We are against the practice of finning when it concerns tossing the body back into sea. But we did ask to be able to separate the fins from the body onboard and take them to separate ports, because they end up in different commercial circuits. The fins go to Asia, the meat goes to Europe.”