| UPDATED: 14:41, Thu, Feb 18, 2021
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EU: Fishing red tape is 'incomprehensible' says expert
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In December, EU ministers gathered in Brussels to establish fishing opportunities in the form of yearly "total allowable catches" (TACs) and quotas – in what was expected to be the final step towards the legal obligation to end overfishing by 2020. The new Fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius claimed almost all fish landings from the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea will now come from sustainable resources. However, the deal struck in Brussels fails to meet targets recommended by scientists, who believe that key stocks such as cod, seabass, hake and herring are still overfished – and that, in particular, the cod population is at critical levels.