Boats are limited to 15 days at sea

Long-term proposals to protect cod stocks around the UK have received a mixed reaction from the fishing industry.

European Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler unveiled his vision for the future in Brussels.

The European Commission is planning stricter policing of fishing as part of a long-term strategy to save cod stocks in the North Sea, Irish Sea and off the west coast of Scotland.

Mr Fischler said effective enforcement was needed to tackle the threat of extinction.

This includes extending satellite surveillance to smaller fishing boats of at least 15 metres.

He estimated that it would take up to 10 years for cod stocks to recover to sustainable fishing levels.

And Mr Fischler admitted that "drastic" short-term measures would cause hardship for some fishermen.

He also challenged governments to make more use of the matching EU funding available to offset such hardship.

Individual vessels

The new measures, which will come into effect next year, will replace year-on-year catch quotas with long-term limits.

Individual governments will also be given more power to decide their own priorities as fishing effort will be agreed for a whole fleet, rather than individual vessels.

Hamish Morrison of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation said: "This establishes a terribly important principle - that national governments know best how to allocate fishing entitlement.

"It has been a long, long time getting to this, but now that we are here let's work on it and make something of it.

I am not holding my breath that the more flexible policies that we see emerging from this announcement will in fact be the saving grace for our fleet Struan Stevenson Conservative MEP

"We are still facing a very very uphill battle."

The Scottish Fishermen's Federation hopes that the proposals will help speed the end of the present rules which restrict Scottish white fish vessels to no more than 15 days at sea each month.

Major restrictions on quotas were agreed in December last year after warnings from scientists that stocks were near collapse.

Cod catches in the North Sea were reduced by 45%, with haddock catches cut by half and whiting by almost two thirds.

Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, who chairs the European Parliament's fisheries committee, said he did not think the new measures would safeguard the future of the Scottish fishing industry.

"The problem we have is that the draconian cuts that were imposed last December have decimated our white fishing fleet," he told BBC Scotland.

'Critical mass'

Almost 180 boats have applied for decommissioning in Scotland, along with 70 south of the border.

"After all these boats are scrapped I think that the fishery will fall below the critical mass that can sustain jobs in harbours and in the processing sector.

"I think we are in danger then of the whole edifice collapsing.

"We'll have no fishery left and the only people who will benefit from that will be the huge Spanish fleet," said Mr Stevenson.

"I am not holding my breath that the more flexible policies that we see emerging from this announcement will in fact be the saving grace for our fleet."