The European Union Court fined France with 20 million Euro for allowing trade in immature captures, failing to implement EU rules created to protect fish stocks.
The EU Court ruled that France would have to pay the 20 million Euro fine plus an additional 57.7 million for each semester in case France continues to fail complying with the EU fishing laws. The EU Court ruled severely against France by imposing this country member an exemplar sanction for allowing the practice of catching, discharging and trading immature and undersized fish for more than 20 year.
The ruling passed by the European High Courts will be known due to two main reasons: firstly because this is the first time that the EU Justice penalizes a country for not fulfilling regulations in regards to the conservation of fishing resources, and secondly because this is an unprecedented and double sanction made by the European Court set in Luxemburg, bearing in mind the seriousness of the situation, the length of the infractions and the country’s financial status.
The European Union Court noted that the record signs on this case come as far as 1984 when the judges affirmed that France had not fulfilled the European Union right by ignoring all the necessary controls related to fisheries.
Even when time has passed and the calls to order made from Brussels, the judges consider that the trade of fish of illegal size was still taking place as well as the unsatisfactory and inefficient French authorities intervention.