Claims that the Executive could reclassify an order for fisheries protection vessels as military, thereby making them exempt from EU procurement rules, and potentially saving jobs at the beleaguered Ferguson shipyard, is “highly contentious”, according to an expert in EU law.

Catriona Munro, partner at leading Scottish law firm Maclay Murray & Spens and head of their EU and competition department, spoke to Holyrood about comments by MSPs that fisheries protection boats could be reclassified as “grey ship” – a term that designates military vessels.

Ferguson staff were told last week that as many as 99 of the 126 firm’s employees are facing redundancy, so MSPs are looking for ways to save the yard, Scotland’s last shipbuilders. Ferguson had previously bid for a Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency vessel and lost out to a Devon based firm, but the deal was frozen by Fisheries Minister Ross Finnie.

However, Munro pointed out that the wording in the EC treaty specifies that to be exempt from competition rules, products must be “for specifically military purposes”. “It is very difficult to see how you could shoehorn a fisheries vessel into that purpose.”

Munro said that, while in the past EU member states may have taken a broad view of the wording of the treaty, in December last year, the EU sent out a communication saying that the definition had to be more narrowly construed. “The communication was precisely to point out that they know what’s been going on,” she said.

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