In Brussels there are at least 30,000 lobbyists to influence the political decisions. Many of them work for the fishing industry, to ensure that the Council of Ministers makes decisions that favor industrial fishing. And scientists who have a dissenting opinion are intimidated into silence, according to fisheries researcher Reiner Froese.
The EU's highest court rules that the Council of Ministers breaks the law when it decides on overfishing of "target species", stocks that fishing is directly aimed at. But at the same time, the court gives the ministers the right to "flexibility" in terms of bycatch.
