TWO HUNDRED ACTIVISTS ARRESTED AS GREENPEACE SHUTS DOWN EU F

Earlier this morning, some 200 Greenpeace activists from 14 countries arrived at the annual meeting of the European Union Fisheries Council meeting where EU fisheries ministers were to gather for their annual meeting on fishing quotas.

In front of surprised bureaucrats and security personnel, the activists blocked the seven entrances to the building and began constructing a wall in front of the main entrance.

The Fisheries Council holds its annual meeting today to decide levels of total allowable catches . But according to Greenpeace, the Council's consistently dismal record provides a poor basis for the management of European fish stocks.

"We have shut down the building untill the fish stocks recover because the fisheries ministers have shown us since years their incompetence. Nearly seventy five percent of the fish stocks are overfished", said Greenpeace campaigner Iris Menn.

Since the early 1980s, mismanagement of fish stocks on the part of the Fisheries Council has resulted in an alarming decline in fish stocks in European seas.

According to Greenpeace, the EU needs to take urgent measures to protect fisheries and the marine environment. Such measures would include the establishment of a network of large scale marine reserves, areas off limits to all harmful human uses.

Greenpeace's blockade was not welcomed by all visitors to the Fisheries Council meeting. But other meeting delegates took a lighter approach and attempted scaling the fence around the building.

According to Greenpeace, the decision making process around fish stocks should be taken out of the hands of fisheries ministers. The environmental organisation is asking for the environment ministers to take over with an integrated environmental protection policy,

"We would like to see the environment ministers take over the whole responsibility for the protection of the ocean because they have the protection of the ocean as their first priority instead of the fisheries ministers having economic interests as a top priority" said Greenpeace campaigner Iris Menn,

By the end of the morning, police started to arrest the activists and opened up one of the side entrances to the Council building to enable delegates to enter.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• greenpeace
• fisheries
• eu
• council
• block

[WhiteGangster400]

haaha this is why those greenpeace morons don't have a job and beg for donations by doing this

[crhood2166]

What a bunch of fools. I hope they go to prison for kidnapping and/or wrongful imprisonment.

[totse1234]

No the police are there to stop a bunch of idiots from barricading hundreds of people inside a building. how bout i come to your house and brick up all the doors while your inside and refuse to let you out?

[WolYou]

Ministers are the executives of the industrial leaders. They are payed by them and they are forced by them. What have ministers anyway to do with the European parliament? They shouldn't be there! The representatives of the public should be there and not the executive. This is like lunatics managing the asylum.

[WolYou]

The police is always on the side of the morons.