Responding to the decreased quotas in the EC, in 1988 the United Kingdom enacted the Merchant Shipping Act. The Act stipulated that 75 percent of all ships and fishing industries operating in UK waters had to be British-owned. By registering under the U.K. flag, the Spanish were unlawfully fishing for part of the quota set aside by the EC for the United Kingdom. By doing so, the Spanish, the U.K. claimed, had an adverse effect on their fishing industry. Therefore, the boats had a right to be fishing in U.K. waters.
Spanish fishermen are desperate to catch more fish and move into other waters.
Because the stocks in their own EEZ have been severely depleted, Spanish fishing operations have spread all over the world. Their regular grounds include Canada and Morocco, and they had been forced out of Namibian waters earlier in 1991. The Spanish also claimed the British were illegally closing off the U.K. EEZ to Spanish ships, which had been operating there for many years, because of nationality. Thus, the Merchant Shipping Act acts as a protectionist barrier to the EC fishing trade. The Spanish took the United Kingdom to the European Court of Justice.