EU spent at least €14m subsidising convicted fish crooks http://euobserver.com/9/29661

The European Union has spent at least €14 million in subsidies to firms convicted of illegal fishing, a new report has revealed.Some 36 law-breaking vessel owners with 42 convictions between them received €13.5 million between 1994 and 2006 according to an investigation by Fishsubsidy.org, a group of researchers investigating the recipients of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy. In a laborious nine-month investigation, the team matched up records of court convictions with lists of who receives EU fishing subsidies. The investigators warn however that this is only the tip of the iceberg, as they only looked at boats in the waters of two major fishing nations, Spain and France.

The companies have been convicted of serious infringements ranging from logbook misreporting to captures under the minimum size to use of illegal fishing gear and exceeding quotas.Five of the vessels received more than €1 million each in EU subsidies. Some of the boats on the list have been convicted multiple times and have been heavily fined. In one example, in 2001, two vessels owned by a Spanish firm were found guilty of using illegal fishing gear and each boat was fined €35,000. The EU had financed the construction of the vessels to the tune of nearly €2 million between them. One boat then went on to receive a further EU grant for modernisation in 2006.

comment-also see...Open Europe: “The real expenses scandal is in Brussels”  http://www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/summary.aspx?id=851  EU environmental policy awards millions in windfall profits to oil companies and heavy industry http://www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/pressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=129   Open Europe publishes list of top 100 examples of EU fraud and waste  http://www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/pressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=89