I think Tommy got off on a tangent by including nuclear capability, but people really do need to incorporate into considering other options what nasty hardball the Europeans play- on ALL issues, not just fishing.
Whether it is worth it is a question, but you cannot just wave away the fact that NATO and our closeness with the US substantially tempers the effects of that.
People talk and think of Europe as the alternative for loosening the dependence on the US. It is utopian in the extreme not to integrate tha twhat the Europeans have in mind when they talk to us is a yoke.