Currently, EU boats in the North Sea have to throw away up to half of what they catch to stay within their quotas.

Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki proposes instead to regulate fleets through limits on fishing time and greater use of measures such as CCTV. She discussed the ideas with delegates from EU member states in Brussels on Tuesday, with the aim of finalising plans later in the year.

She hopes to introduce a discard ban as part of a reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 2013. UK Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon said the atmosphere had been positive. "We are all agreed - tackling the waste of discards must be a top priority," he said.

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