These measures should help to improve the enforcement of IOTC measures and hence efficiency of the organisation. The EU was also instrumental to ensure that the recommendations of the second performance review of IOTC, including its reform, were endorsed and will be followed-up through a Working Group. However, the EU was hoping for a more ambitious outcome on the conservation of yellowfin tuna, one of the main IOTC stocks, where the main fishing fleets involved in this fishery could contribute to the reduction of catches for the next year with close monitoring by the Scientific Committee. Purse seiners will reduce their catches by 15% percent, Fish Aggregating Devices will be reduced from 550 to 425 and the number of supply vessels will be also reduced, gillnetters will reduce catches by 10%, longliners also 10% and coastal non-artisanal fleets by 5%.

The EU also welcomes the adoption of Harvest Control Rules for skipjack but regrets that it was not possible to adopt conservation measures on some overfished Neritic tunas and Billfish, as proposed by the EU, due to the resistance of some Contracting parties involved in these fisheries. The EU regrets as well that compliance by IOTC parties does not show major improvements and that no progress could be made on the selection of the Executive Secretary in times where the Secretariat needs to address new challenges in terms of science, capacity building for developing states and compliance.