THE Eurovision Song Contest is to tasteful music what farmed salmon is the wild, river feeding variety - insipid and uninspiring. It is thus appropriate that Norway, the world's largest producer of farmed salmon, should host this year's annual convergence of Euro warblers. Those photogenic salmon leaping over weirs picturesquely illustrated the country's thriving salmon industry but won few points from fish farming interests elsewhere. Norway has struck some far from melodic cords among Irish and Scottish salmon producers who claim that years of over production has created a glut of farmed salmon and depressed prices. Eighty five per cent of the Norwegian harvest is exported, mainly to Europe and Japan, markets equally important to the Irish salmon export business.

However, the song contest may have been a catalyst for a more tangible form of neighbourly conciliation in the land of the horned helmets. This week the Norwegian fisheries ministry said that feed quotas introduced to curb salmon production earlier this year will remain in place next year. The quotas are intended to ensure that current production will not exceed last year's harvest of 300,000 tons. Last year the EU fixed a minimum price on farmed salmon but stopped short of imposing anti dumping measures on Oslo. Norway is trying to reconcile accepting such penalties of commercial success from outsiders with its desire for increased two way trade with a community from which it has voluntarily excluded itself, a balancing act fraught with as much difficulty as the nuances of Eurovision voting.