BRUSSELS, July 13 (UPI) -- The European Commission has unveiled major plans to reform the European Union's fishing industry and stop catches from being wasted, officials said.
The proposal, which would take effect in 2013, would give fleets quota shares guaranteed for at least 15 years but would end the practice of "discards" in which up to half the catch of some fish is thrown back into the sea to avoid going above quotas.
Under the new scheme, boats would be expected to land all the fish caught with no discarding allowed, and the whole catch would count against quotas.
There has been widespread public opposition to discards across the EU, with more than half a million people signing a petition.
The Common Fisheries Policy has been in effect for 28 years but has been a failure, EU Maritime and Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said.
"There is overfishing; we have 75 percent overfishing of our stocks and comparing ourselves to other countries we cannot be happy," Damanaki told the BBC.
"So we have to change," she said. "Let me put it straight -- we cannot afford business as usual anymore because the stocks are really collapsing."
In the Mediterranean 82 percent of fish stocks are overfished, while in the Atlantic the figure is 63 percent, the commission said.
