July 13, 2011 – The European Commission has proposed an overhaul of the Common Fisheries Policy in an effort to preserve fish stocks. The fisheries commissioner expects to have a tough time convincing EU governments to back the plan.
The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled its proposals for a major reform of the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), aimed at preserving fish stocks in the waters around the bloc in the long term.
According to EU figures, currently 63 percent of the fish stocks in the Atlantic Ocean and 82 percent of the stocks in the Mediterranean Sea are overfished.
The plan is to stop the overfishing of depleted stocks and get to what is known as a "maximum sustainable yield" by 2015. This would be done in part by reducing fishing in over-exploited stocks for a few years in order to allow them to recover.
Read the complete story from Deutsche Wella.