A website today published a list of 42 convictions of fishing vessel owners that have also received EU subsidies under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), and campaigners behind the site said it underlined how the EU subsidises illegal fishing.

The study by Fishsubsidy.org focused on two major EU fishing nations, Spain and France, and involved matching records of court convictions with data on EU fisheries subsidy payments. Between them, the 36 vessels received €13,510,418 in EU subsidies between 1994 and 2006.

Five of the vessels on the list received more than €1 million each in EU subsidies. They have been convicted of infringements ranging from logbook misreporting to captures under minimum size to use of illegal fishing gear and exceeding quota.

The study also covers the UK which, until December 2009, was alone among Member States in publishing detailed prosecution reports until the Marine Fisheries Agency decided to remove this information from its website, on grounds of data protection.

Fishsubsidy.org is a project coordinated by EU Transparency, a non-profit organisation in the UK and the Pew Charitable Trusts, a charitable foundation based in the United States.

While previous studies have shown that many EU fisheries subsidies have directly contributed to the overfishing of fish stocks, this is the first study that draws the link between subsidies and illegal fishing.

There is no obligation to take criminal behaviour into account when deciding which vessels should get subsidies, but EU Member States are free to consider this information.

Markus Knigge, of the Pew Environment Group, said: “EU Member States should ensure those in receipt of subsidies are not engaged in illegal fishing. Subsidies have in the past fuelled overfishing – in the future they must be used to support a transition to more sustainable fishing.”

According to the study’s authors, the research is only a snapshot of the problem of illegal fishing and the prevalence of EU subsidies being paid to vessels that have been convicted of illegal fishing, or that have gone on to break the law having received subsidies.

Data on convictions is very hard to obtain, they said, and for this study the principal sources were newspaper reports, which will only ever give a very incomplete picture of the situation.

Jack Thurston, a co-founder of fishsubsidy.org, said: “European governments should publish comprehensive lists of convictions for illegal fishing so we can know who is breaking the law. This is the only way to ensure that public money is not going to fishermen who are breaking laws that protect our precious fisheries.”

The complete list can be found at http://fishsubsidy.org/infringements.