The European Commission has announced a recovery plan to save cod from extinction in the North Sea and other fishing grounds around Britain.

Cod stocks are still falling despite two years of EU restrictions

Year-on-year negotiations on catch quotas are being replaced by long-term cod fishing limits to preserve the dangerously low stocks.

The measures are expected to result in more days spent in port, redundancies and the scrapping of trawlers.

The fishing effort of every trawler catching cod will be calculated in "kilowatt days" - a figure reached by multiplying the boat's engine power by the days spent fishing.

Governments will be given a fixed allocation of these kilowatt days to distribute among the fleet.

'More flexibility'

EU Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler told the BBC that there would be "more flexibility for member states to distribute the fishing effort".

The European Parliament will have to scrutinise the plan - so any new measures are unlikely to be in place before the start of next year.

Brussels is offering more cash aid to ease the impact of job losses.

But Mr Fischler urged EU governments to take more of the funds available for "socio-economic" measures.

So far they had not attached much priority to social measures, he said.

EU fisheries ministers will consider the new plan at talks in Brussels later this month.

In December, the European Union decided to restrict cod catches in the North Sea by 45%, with haddock catches cut by half and whiting by almost two-thirds.

The agreement, designed to protect stocks, also meant fishermen would be restricted to 15 days at sea each month.

Cod stocks in the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean west of Scotland and the Irish Sea have been in serious decline for decades and are now at their lowest ever recorded level.