Parcival Weijnen

IJMUIDEN/ FRASERBURGH/ DUNVEGAN/ HVIDE SANDE – The European fishing industry is becoming increasingly reliant on migrant labour from outside the EU. However, due to the difficulty of regulating international waters, as well as a lack of knowledge and oversight regarding labour laws, these migrant workers are vulnerable to exploitation.

IJMUIDEN - After pulse fishing was banned by the European Parliament in 2018, many Dutch fishermen switched to flyshooting. However, flyshoot fishing mainly targets species for which there is too little data to manage stocks properly. These are not subject to quotas and fishermen can take them out of the sea without limit. And that is a recipe for overfishing.

Since the start of the nitrogen crisis in 2018, more Dutch livestock farmers moved to Belgium than in previous years. This is evident from new research by Spit and Apache. Environmental organisations have been warning for some time that Belgium has become a 'nitrogen paradise' for large-scale polluters. An inventory of the available data supports this fear.

A Dutch fishing giant is involved in a corruption affair and tax evasion scheme concerning fishing quotas in Namibia. The money trail goes via Poland and Iceland.