EU salmon deal on rocks

A row between Britain's two European Commissioners erupted into the open yesterday as Neil Kinnock launched an extraordinary attack on Sir Leon Brittan's handling of a trade dispute with Norway.

Fighting a rearguard action to block a proposed deal on Norwegian fish imports negotiated this week by Sir Leon, Mr Kinnock stopped just short of accusing the trade commissioner of selling out 5,000 jobs in the Scottish salmon industry.

The former Labour leader is in charge of transport policy in the Commission but has been lobbied on salmon by the new British government. Scottish fishing groups claim their livelihoods are under threat from a flood of cut-price Norwegian salmon.

Mr Kinnock yesterday implied that Sir Leon tried to rush through secret concessions to the Norwegians behind the backs of Commission fisheries experts. The draft five year trade accord reneged on earlier recommendations that punitive taxes should be slapped on Norway to discourage dumping and help shore up depressed salmon prices in the EU, he said. Norway, which has the biggest fish industry in the world, was found guilty of dumping salmon on the EU earlier this year and has mounted a huge lobbying bid to avert sanctions.

Explaining a heated four hour debate on Thursday, Mr Kinnock said he and Commission colleagues had been given "absolutely no time" to consider the draft trade deal before the legal deadline of 1 June. "We could not have accepted the draft agreement under those conditions," he said.

A spokesman for Sir Leon defended the handling of negotiations by his trade officials and insisted that as framed the deal was calculated to offer better safeguards to Scotland than anti-dumping duties could. Tariffs would run out after six months and there was no guarantee they would bolster prices, he said.

All 20 commissioners have now been summoned to an unprecedented Sunday evening meeting to break the deadlock before Monday's deadline.