The European Commission has put forward a plan aimed at replenishing critically low stocks of eels, by implementing a total ban on eel fisheries in EU waters of the Baltic Sea which would come into effect next year.
Under the proposals, professional and recreational fisherman would be forbidden from catching any eels and forced to return any caught unintentionally.
If the proposal is approved in October, the ban would come into effect from 2018.
The Commission said in a statement: “The European Eel stock has been at a historically low level since the late 1990s.
“In 2007 the EU adopted measures to allow this stock to recover. However, ICES [International Council for the Exploration of the Sea] advice published in May 2017 indicates that these measures have not been sufficient and the stock is still in a critical state.
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“The Commission therefore proposes to ban all marine eel fisheries in the EU waters of the Baltic Sea for 2018.”
The commission added that it would be evaluating current legislation for the recovery of the European eel.
The move was applauded by German politician Robert Habeck, minister for fihseries in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Mr Halbeck went even further and suggested the ban should apply to all EU waters, not just those in the Baltic Sea.
“That would be ecologically sensible – after all, it is about a single large eel stock in Europe,” he said.
“In addition, it would also be a matter of fairness for all fishermen.”
But Lorenz Marckwardt, chairman of the Schleswig-Holstein regional fishing association, said: “I can not understand a total catching ban at the moment.”
He said fishermen had been releasing elvers, or baby eels, into the Baltic for the past eight years under EU guidelines, and that the scheme had appeared to be working.
Norbert Kahlfuss, President of the fishing federation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, said his group would fight the ban.
But Philipp Kanstinger, a fishing expert for WWF Germany, told SVZ: “We have been watching the eel going extinct for years, it is high time to cease the fishing of this endangered species.”
However, experts are concerned a far higher number which actually take part, with some warning as many as 100,000 soldiers could descend on the country.