Joe Borg is "ludicrous" and "crazy" by his own terms

Yesterday Joe (cy) Borg, the portly Maltese who is the Commissar for fisheries made a speech to the Fisheries Committee of the Parliament. He waffled on at length about this and that and then came up with this,

The most famous words contained in our proposal must be the words "recreational fishing". In some Member States our proposals in this regard have been misinterpreted alarming citizens that the Commission wants to start controlling
millions of hobby anglers and impose quota restrictions on them. This would obviously be a crazy thing to do, and it is therefore not at all our intention to implement such a ludicrous system. Let me make clear once and for all that the hobby angler who catches a few kilos of fish every time he goes out fishing and uses it for his private consumption, will not be covered by the control regulation, even if he catches fish like cod which is under a recovery plan.

Well hurrah, it appears that Article 47 of the Fisheries plan is to be kyboshed, dropped, hidden in the circular filing cabinet, left behind, forgotten; but, but wait a moment. The commissioner, and this is so regular that there must be a law governing it, lets call it,

"Towler's first law of Eurocracy: No EU plan is ever shelved, merely filed for re-use later"

Then said, in what must the fastest U-turn since Evel Knievel decided to brake at Dover, exactly the opposite.

There are however facts and figures in abundance that show that certain forms of so called recreational fishing have a dangerously considerable impact on certain vulnerable fish stock. We cannot just keep restricting severely professional fishing on those stocks but give the recreational fishermen a free ride. They have to contribute as well to the conservation effort. It is with this balance in mind that the Commission will approach the issue in the context of negotiations.

So will the real Commission poistion please stand up? Of course the Assembled MEPs were so delighted with that warm fuzzy feeling of success after the first paragraph, that they rather missed the second one.

It is nice to see that the Borg recognises himself as "crazy" and "ludicrous", it shows a modicum of self knowledge.

Picture nicked from http://www.meretmarine.com/