14 July 2005 Blog Home : July 2005 : Permalink
French counter-attack
The fine imposed on France by the European Court of Justice was the biggest yet - 20m euros ($24.2m) plus an additional 58m euros for every six months it continues to allow fishermen to catch small fish.
But the men in charge of French fishing have hardly sounded contrite.
"Tonnes upon tonnes of small fish are unloaded in Spain, Portugal," Pierre-Georges Dachicourt of France's National Fisheries Committee (CNPMEM) told France Info radio.
"There is fishing over and above the quotas in Scotland, Britain and elsewhere, and you never hear anything about it. People always point the finger at France."
The idea that France is being unfairly singled out does not really hold water.
It's true that there are infringements in every country - Spanish and Italian fishermen had the worse records in 2003 - but the reason France was penalised was that it had failed to enforce EU fishing law effectively over many years.
The European Court of Justice first ruled that the French authorities had failed to prevent the catching of undersize fish back in 1991.
The European Commission then tried to persuade France to resolve the problem for nine years, before taking the case back to the court.
It seems to me that a British government who feels that its position on, say, the budget was being attacked unjustifiably could quite simply say "not paying" and nothing would happen. Even after many millions had been spent in all sorts of stupid courts at the end of the day no one in the EU could actually enforce whatever judgement was found to be against Britain. There is a standard piece of advice given to military officers about never giving orders that you know will be disobeyed. Despite the fact that most of continental Europe has had compulsory military service for decades this piece of wisdom does not seem to have percolated into the consciousness of our leaders.