EU: Bid to strengthen stocks of cod and hake

The European Commission has adopted a proposal to strengthen the existing EU regulation on certain types of fishing gear, in order to protect EU stocks of cod and hake. The Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) had warned that some stocks were at serious risk of collapse. "Given that in EU fisheries several species are caught together, we need to ensure that when the quotas of stocks subject to a recovery plan have been exhausted, no fish from these stocks are caught afterwards by accident but stay in the sea to replenish depleted stocks," said EU Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler.