The EU agreed on Wednesday to maintain controversial fishing subsidies, sparking a sharp response from environmental groups who say the payments encourage overfishing of already stressed stocks.
At the same, the European Commission announced an accord on fishing quotas, cutting them on 47 species it said were overfished, with increases for 16.
After tough, drawn-out talks which went into the night, a draft statement said that ministers would keep subsidies for modernizing fishing fleets through to 2017 as part of a wider policy to put the industry on a sustainable basis.
The subsidies pay for modernizing existing vessels or taking older boats out of the fleet and are jealously guarded by the main fishing powers — France, Portugal and especially Spain.
Critics, however, say this only increases fishing capacity at a time when the focus should be on reducing the catch so as to allow stocks to recover.
