Although the size of the total catch is small, the fish is one of the most valuable in the world due to its popularity in Japan.. France and Spain are holding out against moves to redistribute some of their quota to Italy and Greece, both of which have sufferedpenalties for over-fishing. The commission says that “concern remains for a number of stocks” although in a few exceptions, such as plaice and sole in the North Sea, the permitted catches will increase.Detailed negotiations are likely to go into the early hours of tomorrow as ministers have to agree the whole package.Discussions have been complicated by a dispute among Mediterranean countries over bluefin tuna stocks. Mr Morley wants to stick at this year’s figure.The figures for total allowable catches are drawn up on the basis of data from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. For sprat in the North Sea the European Commission wants to see increases from 150,000 this year to 175,000 next. In 1999, the figure is set to be reduced to 5,500 tonnes, a cut of 23 per cent.Of the five areas where Britain is seeking an increase, the biggest is haddock fishing off the west coast of Scotland, where a reduction from 25,700 to 18,100 is planned. The UK, which is entitled to 81 per cent of that catch, believes that the scientific evidence does not fully support the cut.The other catches where Mr Morley will be arguing for a increases are: cod and haddock off the west coast of scotland; herring in the Irish Sea; plaice in the English Channel; and sole in the Bristol Channel and Celtic Sea.In one area the UK will argue for a lower total catch than Brussels proposes.

The whiting catch will also be slashed from 60,000 tonnes to 44,000 tonnes next year, a drop of 27 per cent. British fishermen are entitled to just over half.And cod fishermen in the Irish Sea will also be hit. British fishermen are allowed to land 43 per cent of the total permitted catch which was 7,100 tonnes this year. British fishermen are entitled to 60 per cent of that catch.Other traditional British fishing waters which will be hit include haddock catches in the North Sea, where the UK agrees with a cut to the total catch from 115,000 tonnes in 1998 to 88,500 next year – a cut of nearly a quarter The UK’s quota is 78 per cent of this figure. We need to conserve stocks today otherwise we run the risk of there being no fish stocks in the future.”At today’s meeting, Eliot Morley, the Fisheries Minister, will agree to a 23 per cent reduction in the 80,370 tonnes of herring fished this year off the west coast of Scotland, to 62,000 tonnes in 1999. The move, likely to provoke consternation among British fishermen, will come at a crunch meeting of European fisheries ministers called to set total annual catches.
Britain will call for changes to just five of the 50 categories which affect the UK, dashing the hopes of most of the country’s 10,000 fishermen who argue that their livelihoods are at stake.A British official argued: “We are taking a cautious approach based on scientific advice.

THE GOVERNMENT will today agree to massive cuts in British fishing quotas proposed by Brussels under Europe-wide plans designed to conserve rapidly-dwindling stocks. “But this is refocusing on the whole millennium experience, which people have not yet managed to grasp.”People have not grasped the momentousness of the event – that it’s a once in a 40-generation occurrence.”The advertising is stage one of a pounds 16m, year-long campaign that will culminate in a pitch for people to buy tickets for the Millennium Dome when they go on sale next autumn.. That explains the sandwich.But by concentrating on the significance of the new millennium, the commercial ducks any of the controversy surrounding the Dome.”People know a lot about the Dome,” said a spokesman. The pounds 250,000 television commercial will appear over Christmas and run for a fortnight alongside a heavyweight poster campaign, which starts this week.”People seemed to go for the small familiar things which affect everyday lives as well as the big significant advances,” a spokesman said. And without the Russian Revolution, the Berlin Wall might never have climbed higher than a picket fence.The company said it drew up the final list after consumer research was carried out.

And would, for example, Sir Walter have ever considered venturing beyond Basingstoke had not Christopher Columbus made the New World a popular holiday destination? Without the Age of Discovery, apartheid would probably not have had a beginning let alone an end. A television commercial, which begins on Christmas Eve, runs through what it considers the great achievements of humanity during the past millennium.
Top of the list are Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the moment in the 1780s when the Earl of Sandwich grasped the limitless possibilities of bread, and the compassion of Mother Teresa.The New Millennium Experience Company’s top 12 also includes: the Easter Island statues, Westminster Abbey, William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, the invention of television, the lunar landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, and Sir Walter Raleigh’s patronage of the potato.Any debate about whether people need to see advertising to know that a new millennium is on the way will almost certainly be overshadowed, however, by arguments over the commercial’s omissions.They include the discovery of penicillin, the steam engine, the Industrial Revolution, the Reformation, the Renaissance, and Darwin’s theory of evolution. As if it had not courted enough controversy to last the next 1,000 years, the company responsible for the Millennium Dome had a stab at its choice yesterday when it unveiled a pounds 2m advertising campaign. Tesco said it was “highly likely” that it would appeal to John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister and Environment Secretary, against the decision of East Riding Council planning committee.The benefits to the council, at least, are obvious.