In many ways the bluster from Europe's fisheries ministers the week before Christmas is as predictable as a pantomime script, if only it were meant to be funny! They all trumpet a 'fair deal' and talk about 'striking a balance', and most hilariously, 'respecting the science'. But in reality short-term political expediency continues to trump scientific reality. Today the EU announced its fishing quotas for 2009, as usual doing their best to ignore their own scientists' recommendations. Instead they agreed to increase quotas for endangered North Sea cod by 30 per cent, after the scientists had recommended that to be safe they shouldn't be catching any.

Norwegian coastguards filmed this UK trawler discarding 80% of its catch of endangered fish just outside Norwegian waters earlier this year

Every year the EU and Norway get together to agree how to share out fishing quotas in their adjacent waters (remember, Norway is not a member of the EU, and has it's own exclusive fishing zone, unlike EU countries). They are gathering this week, and it always happens before the annual quota-haggling meeting of the EU Council in Brussels, where the EU decide and divide on quotas for fish in EU waters.

Usually they do their best to ignore scientific advice, and amazingly all of the fisheries ministers seem to manage to go back home claiming to have won a 'good deal' for their respective fishing industries.