An hour-long meeting yesterday in Brussels between EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg and representatives of Italian and French tuna fishermen did not change the Commission's decision to close the tuna fishing season for trawlers using purse seines two weeks before the official deadline.
"Commissioner Borg stood his ground," his spokesman said after the meeting.
"Our position is very clear. According to our information, both the Italian and French fishermen have exceeded their quota for this year and, therefore, we had to close the season.
"We are implementing a recovery plan which is in the interest of the fishermen themselves," the spokesman said.
Yesterday's meeting followed a protest outside the offices of the European Commission representation office in Ta' Xbiex last week, when Italian and French fishermen threatened to block Malta's ports with their boats if they were not granted an urgent appointment with Dr Borg.
Speaking to The Times after yesterday's meeting, Pasquale della Monica, a spokesman for the fishermen said that despite the cordiality, "we were not given a satisfactory answer to our demands".
The fishermen presented documents showing that both Italian and French fishermen have actually fished much less than their quotas allow.
"We showed them that we (the Italians) caught only 47 per cent of our quota while the French caught only 30 per cent. However, Commissioner Borg kept insisting that the information they have is different to ours," he said.
Asked about their next move, Mr Della Monica said that they will continue to protest and exert pressure on their governments.
Today, a demonstration is to be held in Luxembourg where EU Fisheries Ministers and Commissioner Joe Borg will be meeting. The Italian and French governments are expected to present a case in favour of their tuna fishermen.
However, Commission sources said that "the Commission will have no difficulty in showing the two governments its figures confirming that the fishermen's claims do not match the real catches."
Last week Commissioner Borg described this year's tuna fishing as being once again "marred by countless failures to properly implement the rules that have been agreed at international level to manage the bluefin tuna stock sustainably".
Quoting examples from information arriving at Brussels from various sources, Dr Borg said that while half the French fleet say they have caught nothing, the other half declared they had caught over 90 per cent of their individual quotas, although all the vessels showed similar activity rates.
Maltese fishermen have not been hit by the Commission's decision as the majority fish for tuna with long lines. At the same time, Maltese tuna-fattening ranches are not supposed to be accepting any more fish caught by purse seines.