Not really been Chirac's month has it? First there was the EU 'Non' vote, then losing the Olympics, and now getting done Ronson-stylee,
sans lube, by the European Court over illegal fishing.
Heigh-ho.
France is fined £13m for flouting fish laws
By David Rennie in Brussels
(Filed: 13/07/2005)
France suffered a historic humiliation yesterday when Europe's highest court imposed a record fine for flouting European Union laws designed to preserve endangered fish stocks.
The European Court of Justice slapped an unprecedented £13.7 million fine on the government in Paris for ignoring warnings going back 14 years that French fishermen were landing undersized fish.
In another first, the court backed its one-off fine with an extra penalty of £212,600 a day, payable every six months, unless major steps were taken to obey EU rules.
In a toughly worded ruling, judges at the Luxembourg court noted that they had already ruled against France, in 1991, when they found it had failed to enforce conservation rules in the mid-1980s.
EU inspections over the following 11 years convinced the European Commission that undersized fish were still openly on sale, and that French authorities were "lax" about taking action.
Yesterday's fine was for violations that were so persistent and serious that they "prejudice seriously the Community objectives of conserving and managing fishery resources", the court said.
French officials insisted that fishery controls had been tightened over the years.