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A release from government this week said that there was no justification for this action because in January, a delegation from the EU visited Belize to discuss the action taken by Belize to comply with the EU Regulations on Illegal and Unregulated fishing. But then this decision came out in March, which led Jules Vasquez to ask the PM if that delegation flew back to the EU on that ill-fated Air Malaysia flight:

Jules Vasquez
"The people who came to see him in January must have been in the Air Malaysia flight or some such thing because apparently he met with them and they didn't take the message back. They must have disappeared."

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"So it appears, but I'm not especially worried except, I think the EU does need to get its act together. You can't send a team down here, you can't have an understanding reached; you can't offer assurances by way of that team that certain things will happen or not happen and then within a couple of weeks, you go back on your word. But the practical effect of what has been done is not of a kind of consequence that unduly worries me. You are talking about a small number of ships, part of the fishing fleet, that can't now access European Ports. In the larger scheme of things, really it is not something to be especially concerned about."