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Post by LSDeep on Mar 2, 2006 10:23:33 GMT -5
France has been ordered to pay a £40 million penalty for failing to enforce EU fishing rules for nearly 15 years.
The French government was fined £14 million in a landmark European court case last July for not complying with a 1991 verdict that the authorities had failed to prevent illegal over-fishing.
That fine has been paid - but the European Commission decided to trigger additional hefty financial penalties the judges said could be demanded if the situation did not improve.
The Commission said French authority efforts to stop French fishermen taking undersized fish from the sea were not good enough.
Now the £40 million fine must be paid every six months until an adequate fisheries control system is in place which respects EU stock conservation rules.
The penalty comes six weeks after the Commission named the UK, Denmark and Sweden as the only EU countries fully monitoring European fishing quota restrictions.
Ireland and Spain were singled out as the countries with the worst record for exceeding agreed fishing limits.
The Commission warned then that the penalty against France was on the cards.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved.
pretty cheap, considering that it is for 15 years! i would think more like 400 million per year would be adequate.
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