EU Ends Fines, Legal Case on France for Overfishing
Date: 24-Nov-06
Country: BELGIUM
Last year, in a case dating back to 1991, the European Court of Justice ordered France to pay 20 million euros ($25.95 million) with a six-monthly penalty of 57.76 million euros.
It was the first "combination" fine of a lump sum and periodic penalty the court had ever imposed on an EU country.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, had struggled for around 15 years to get France to comply with EU fish conservation laws and ensure that its fisher industry used correct net sizes and did not catch or sell undersized fish.
France had now fully met its legal obligations and would not face any more periodic fines, the Commission said on Thursday.
"The sustainability of fisheries depends entirely on the proper implementation of all fisheries measures," EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said in a statement.
"The changes made by France will strengthen our common efforts to effectively discourage illegal fishing activities," it said, adding that France had made huge progress and the legal action that it had opened against Paris was now finished.
The first ruling against France came in 1991, when the ECJ ruled that Paris had fallen foul of EU fisheries laws and did not have the necessary control systems in place.
Ten years later, and after numerous checks by EU inspectors at French ports, the Commission again complained to the ECJ that Paris had still not done enough to come properly into line.
Frustrated after two written warnings that France had ignored, it asked the ECJ to slap daily fines against the French government until there was demonstrable and full compliance.
Nothing happened until 2004, when an independent ECJ adviser went one step further and said for the first time that France should be hit with a lump sum and also a six-monthly penalty due to its persistent failure to comply with the 1991 ruling.
