Raül Romeva i Rueda (Verts/ALE), in writing. – In favour. The FAO adopted a Plan of Action to combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in 2001, which has since been a declared priority of the international community. IUU fishing undermines efforts to conserve and manage fish stocks in all capture fisheries. When confronted with IUU fishing, national and regional fisheries management organizations can fail to achieve management goals. This situation leads to the loss of both short and long-term social and economic opportunities and to negative effects on food security and environmental protection. IUU fishing can lead to the collapse of a fishery or seriously impair efforts to rebuild stocks that have already been depleted. Existing international instruments addressing IUU fishing have not been effective due to a lack of political will, priority, capacity and resources to ratify or accede to and implement them. (FAO 2001 Plan of Action, first paragraph) By its very nature, the extent of IUU fishing is impossible to estimate with any precision, but it is known to be very large. One recent study suggested it accounted for between 11 and 26 million tonnes per year. Even the low end of that range is equivalent to 15% of marine catches.