Fisheries row: EU-Norway salmon deal blocked

By Neil Buckley in Brussels

A furious row in the European Commission yesterday blocked a proposed deal with Norway to avert the imposition of anti-dumping duties on imports of Norwegian salmon.

The 20 commissioners have now been summoned to an almost unheard-of 9pm meeting on Sunday in an effort to reach a last-minute agreement on the planned deal before the legal deadline of midnight Sunday.

Scottish fishing groups - which officially complained last year that Norway was dumping Atlantic salmon in the EU market at below-cost prices - say the proposed deal puts 5,000 jobs in the Scottish salmon industry at risk.

The deal involves undertakings from Norway to sell its salmon in the EU above a minimum price and to limit growth of its imports into the EU, rather than having 13.7 per cent anti-dumping duties imposed on its salmon as originally proposed in March by Sir Leon Brittan, trade commissioner.

A "heated" four-hour meeting yesterday broke up in acrimony after Sir Leon failed to persuade enough fellow commissioners that the agreement he had negotiated with Norway this week was preferable to anti-dumping duties.

He was vigorously opposed by fellow UK commissioner Mr Neil Kinnock, Mr Padraig Flynn, social affairs commissioner, and Mrs Emma Bonino, fisheries commissioner. They insisted minimum price undertakings were insufficient, with punitive duties the only effective option.

Sir Leon had been expected to press ahead with duties after a Commission investigation supported the complaints from Scottish and Irish fishermen that Norwegian salmon growers, helped by state subsidies, had been dumping salmon in the EU at up to 14 per cent below cost price.

The trade commissioner - if backed by other commissioners - can impose temporary duties for six months without approval from EU ministers, though he must consult a com-mittee of EU states' representatives.

Meetings of the committee last month exposed significant opposition among EU states to Sir Leon's proposed duties.

All sides have refused to disclose the terms of the proposed compromise with Norway.

But it is thought to include five-year minimum price undertakings; "indicative" limits on the increase in Norwegiansalmon exports to the EU each year until 2002; a rise in Norway's own export tax on exporters, and regular European Commission monitoring.