As numbers of EU commercial stocks such as cod, sole and hake started to fall from the early 1990s, deep-water fish became an attractive catch as trawlers switched from traditional fishing grounds. Some deep-water fish live for up to 150 years. The two-day debate on setting quotas for 2007 and 2008 split the 25 nations of the EU into a broad north-south divide, while the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, diluted some of the harsh quota cuts it had first wanted to apply.

The cuts agreed for 2007 and 2008 ranged between 10 and 25 percent below the quotas allocated to EU countries in 2005.

"I think the final compromise agreement reached is a very fair balance," EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said.

"It guarantees that we are taking effective action to protect these vulnerable species and over a timeframe that will not cause hardship for fishermen," he told a news conference.

STRONG OPPOSITION

Quotas for four of the nine species under discussion -- black scabbardfish, alfonsinos, red seabream and forkbeards -- will be rolled over from 2005 levels. Tusk quotas will be discussed again at the ministers' next meeting in December.

For deep-sea sharks and orange roughy, where the Commission had proposed 33 percent quota cuts over three years, the agreement was for 25 percent cuts over four years based on 2005 catch levels -- meaning that these fisheries will be phased out.

Northern states, including Britain, Germany and Denmark, argued hard to save Europe's deep-sea fish from extinction and wanted to follow scientific advice to ban catches of tusk, blue ling, orange roughy, and black scabbardfish in certain areas.

They faced strong opposition from France, Portugal and Spain -- the EU countries with the most developed deep-sea fishing industries, backed by Italy and Poland. The debate between the two sides focused on the basis for calculating the quota cuts.