EU fisheries ministers enter their fourth day of talks in Brussels today with no sign of agreement on proposals to cut fish quotas and reform the Common Fisheries Policy.
The meeting is expected to continue well into the early hours of tomorrow and sources close to the talks suggest the ministers could leave Brussels without reaching agreement.
If the ministers fail to agree, EU subsidies to the fishing industry will be frozen and the European Commission will impose a total ban on fishing some species, such as cod, from January 1st, 2003.
In its latest compromise proposal, the Danish presidency has suggested postponing a moratorium on EU aid for building new fishing vessels until 2004. But "the Friends of Fishing", a group of countries led by France and Spain, and including Ireland, has rejected the offer.
The French fisheries minister, Mr Herve Gaymard, said the French fishing industry was determined to resist the Commission's demands for drastic cuts in fish quotas.
He accused the Fisheries Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, of taking an inflexible approach to the negotiations. "The positions have hardened. There is no movement," Mr Gaymard said. He said there was a real chance the talks would break up without a resolution and he suggested it would then be for EU leaders to resolve the issue.
The environmental pressure group WWF, which is staging a protest outside the talks, yesterday blamed the ministers for the problem of overfishing.
Ms Heike Vesper, the group's fisheries expert, said ministers have been discussing the problem for 18 months but had done nothing. "The fisheries council must finally accept responsibility for the catastrophic state of fish stocks in European waters," she said.
