There's a picture at the top of the page in this excellent magazine which shows a handsome young man leaning on a board which bears in very large, very clear words, with an exclamation mark after: IT'S NOT VIKING FAIR! It refers to a fish war that hasn't been so much in headlines recently (Spain seems to have been taking the main brunt). Anyway the picture says clearly that this Irish fisherman is demonstrating against the price of Norwegian salmon. The Scots are in it, too. Even more so than us, perhaps. They have accused the Norwegians, it seems, of dumping and of being given subventions by their own government.
What lies behind it all is, according to the article in Europ, produced by the much esteemed foundation Journalistes en Europe, is that Scottish and Irish members of the EU see themselves disadvantaged by a non EU country which has already captured 17 pier cent of the world salmon production, has harmed marketing efforts by bringing about "spectacular" - lowering of prices - particularly in 1996, on a product which used to be seen as a luxury. Producers in Norway are annoyed, the reporter says, by governmental investigations and questionnaires, holding up business. The EU questionnaire, all of 84 pages, is seen as an attack on the salmon producers, and unfair. It wouldn't happen if they were in the EU. The Scots seem to be at the head of the demand for a special tax on the importation of Norwegian salmon, starting this May.
Norwegians point out that they are just very good at their job: their research into disease, into foodstuffs, into vaccination and the supervision of the production is such that the costs of production have been brought down by 30 per cent in the last five years, according to a spokesman. Another spokesman says there is a growing interest in salmon and the market should be developed, particularly in Atlantic countries. This article is by Djamel Benramdane, from Algeria. The students come from all points of the globe, and this year one Irish: Mairead Carey.
All this may already have been fixed by the Commission, but the last paragraph is intriguing. It says that a Norwegian has devised an electronic system. Put it into a fish, and it will attract shoals to come to be caught. Will there be many wild salmon around in a few years' time? Not Viking Fair, as the poster says.