(BRUSSELS) - European fisheries ministers on Tuesday agreed to tighten up the rules protecting threatened tuna stocks, obliging member states to present detailed fishing plans before the season starts.

The ministers, meeting in Brussels, formalised a plan agreed in principle in June to restrict the fishing of bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean in the hope of reviving dwindling stocks.

Under the 15-year plan, the amount of time fishing boats can be at sea will be limited to six months a year, while the minimum size of fish allowed to be taken was raised from 10 kilogrammes (22 pounds) to 30 to help them reproduce.

The package, which will hit France, Italy and Spain particularly hard as they are the EU's biggest tuna fishing nations, is part of a broader global effort to protect tuna which was agreed in January in Japan.

The ministers added a supplementary measure, proposed by the European Parliament, under which all EU member states will from next year be obliged to present the Commission with a detailed fishing plan ahead of the season.

Environmentalists have warned that tuna could face extinction if fishing continued at current rates to feed a worldwide fad for Japanese food such as sushi.

But tuna fishing is an increasingly lucrative industry, particularly for developing economies that export to Japan, which consumes a quarter of the world's tuna.

"In concrete terms, they will have to say, by the end of January, how they intend to distribute their allowed national quotas, boat by boat for vessels over 24 metres and by groups of trawlers for the smaller boats," said a European diplomat involved in the talks.

"The objective is to allow the Commission to verify whether the plans are carried out," to prevent overfishing towards the end of the season, he added.

This year European Union nations breached the bloc's bluefin tuna quota of around 4,000 tonnes, with France the main culprit. Tuna fishing was therefore halted for the rest of this year.

Agriculture and Fisheries Council, 22-23 November 2007

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