British, German and Swedish ministers travelled to the

annual fish talks in Brussels last week prepared to curb the number of days fishermen will be allowed to spend at sea catching the endangered North Sea cod by 15 per cent.

They then discovered that European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg had made a tactical blunder.

In a back-room deal, he had given the hugely destructive Dutch beam trawl fleet a reduction in their days at sea next year of just eight per cent. His reason: he wants the Dutch to sign up to a flatfish recovery plan intended to bring back the equally endangered North Sea plaice.

So ministers realised, in astonishment, that they all had to ask for a reduction of eight per cent – and not 15 per cent – or the fishermen back home would cut up rough.

Charles Clover, environment editor of the Euro-sceptic Daily Telegraph wrote: “This is the way we do fish conservation in Europe – or rather why it doesn’t happen. If something has to give, it is always the fish.”