In future, fishermen will no longer be allowed to target cod and mostly no herring in the western Baltic Sea.
After more than 24 hours of negotiations, the EU countries agreed on Tuesday that only bycatch of just under 490 tons of cod and 788 tons of herring should be possible, the EU countries announced.
Last year, 1,600 tonnes of western herring and 4,000 tonnes of western cod were allowed to be caught across the EU.
The background to the new rules are worrying developments in many fish stocks in the Baltic Sea.
With this, the states are following the EU Commission's proposal for herring; for western cod, the agreement exceeds the proposal of the Brussels authority by around 165 tonnes.
For Germany this means that 435 tons of western herring and 104 tons of western cod may be caught.
Ministry disagrees with decision
A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that the agreement includes an exemption for fishing boats under 12 meters that are allowed to continue to fish specifically for herring with “passive fishing gear”, such as gill nets.
In a communication, the ministry also indicated that it did not agree to the decision.
Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner (CDU) had unsuccessfully demanded that a decision on western herring should be made in December because this stock is migrating and other countries fish from it.
Negotiations with these countries will not take place until the end of the year.
Klöckner's fear is therefore that a strict EU decision in favor of the Baltic Sea could induce other countries to catch higher catches in other seas.
Numerous organizations for environmental protection have long criticized excessive catches.