Scientists say an outright ban is the only way to avoid the collapse of whitefish stocks, but the EU executive, the European Commission, rejected this, saying it had a social duty to protect communities dependent on fishing for their livelihood.

But substantial cuts would be needed in "fishing effort" - EU jargon for the number of days which member state vessels could spend at sea. This would be monitored either by inspectors or a radio reporting system, Fischler told EU fisheries ministers meeting in Brussels.

"This (plan), we believe, would combine protection for the stocks with the possibility for the fleets to continue fishing, even if at much reduced levels. Extraordinary situations call for courageous decisions," he said.

European cod stocks now stand at their lowest recorded levels in the North Sea, Skagerrak off Denmark, the Irish Sea and waters west of Scotland. Stocks of hake are also very low.

"We find ourselves in an extraordinary situation where there are so few cod left in certain areas that scientists feel unable to predict the effects of potential recovery measures," Fischler said.

"Stocks that not so long ago produced 200,000 tonnes of food from EU waters are now so depleted that we are in the dark as to what is going to happen to them," he said.

The Commission has already proposed a radical reform of the EU Common Fisheries Policy by capping traditionally high quotas, usually set at the end of each year by species and area.

Earlier this week, it said fishermen could be banned from throwing away excess or small fish. Young fish make up the majority of discards and most of them are already dead or dying when they are thrown back into the sea.

"The current cod crisis is an example of the ministers' repeated failure to act on the warnings of scientists about declining stocks," Helene Bours, Greenpeace Fisheries Campaigner, said in a statement.

"Ministers must stop basing their decisions on short-term political calculations, geared to soothe the fishing industry, and wake up to the extent of the crisis," she said.