EU member states that have repeatedly flouted EU limits on how much fish they can catch will receive greatly reduced quotas for this year, as the bloc strives to ensure sustainable fishing, the European Commission said on Wednesday.
Those who incur the biggest penalties are France, Portugal and Spain.
Quotas are normally reduced by a percentage of the amount a nation has overfished.
Because France, Portugal and Spain repeatedly overfished the same species in the same area over the last three years, they will in addition see their quotas cut by 50 percent this year compared with their 2011 limit.
Spain faced the largest penalty by volume. For this year, its allowable catch of horse mackerel along its northern coastline is reduced by 11,624 metric tons from 22,409.
