Might this be another of three areas of failure in EU policy/regulation that might provide a base for showing the teeming masses the difference between what is and what could be? Or is this too far removed since the final offending regulations will not truly be from the EU?

Looks like the thought police are saddling up...

I wonder when they'll be paying informers? (as is the way of these things) - I'd like to claim my £500 to contribute to hosting fees etc....

EU Referendum.com on the menu no doubt :-)

unt fen fee haff zee list ....

Edited by user 03 February 2013 16:39:22(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Without much knowledge of the political background of Maria Damanaki, may I hazard a guess as to some likely thinking processes?

I presume that the Greeks do not have a major interest in this dispute. But they DO have a major interest in assuring a constant supply of bail-out money from the EU. It is likely, therefore that they will offer a quid pro quo to those states WITH an interest - support OUR bid for more money from Germany, and we'll fight hard for you against the Norwegians and Faroese. Don't support us, and we may be much less successful. The actual real issues with fish will be irrelevant...

When I think about it, that is likely to be the case with ALL negotiations and agreements between EU countries. In every discussion there is likely to be a two-level set of pressures - those associated with the problem in hand, and those which are wholly disconnected with the problem, but which enable various scores to be settled or new favours arranged.

If we stay in the EU this is going to be the future of international relations. Balkan-type squabbling over a wide range of unconnected trifles every time anyone wants to do anything. I assume that this the Europhiles mean when they say "we will be stronger together..."

Insiders seem to think that, even by commission standards, the woman is a train crash.

I try to be wary of the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon", that as I get older I notice more things through experience and more knowledge. Rather like learning a new word then you notice it everywhere. I'm mindful, as you articulate Richard often, that newspapers have never been honest, but that there's a danger we think it was all different.

But then I think she's gone from Hello to the complexities of CFP and international law clearly without a clue. It has all turned crap hasn't it...? It's not just me?

Richard, this is just another example, in my opinion, of the feminisation of our national bodies; political, military, police, judiciary and media. Everything is based on emotions rather than logic. And this is a consequence of seeing everyone; men, women, blacks, asians, whites, Christians, muslims etc; as equal. Well, they are not. And one of these days normality will resume and the vermin who populate the upper echelons of power and influence and who disseminate such lies, will be relegated to the cess pit of ignorance, stupidity, and willful dissembling, from whence they emerged.

There are some things I have never understood about equality.

I cannot see how a man and a woman can be equal. They are different, of that there is no doubt, like comparing apples & oranges. Is either one better? I doubt it but they are not equal.

Not sure if I'm included in that but even if I am, I agree.

I feel that I must defend my sex here. While women and men can no doubt provide equal levels of run-of-the-mill stupidness, I still maintain that for sheer boneheaded complete idiocy you need a man.

When everything else has collapsed around them, men still have that aggressive, competitive instinct which keeps them digging at the bottom of the hole even as the sides are falling in...