Finnish Agriculture Minister Juha Korkeaoja said that the talks eventually led to a unanimous agreement, showing that colleagues' concerns had been answered.

"When we say that we were able to take a unanimous decision what this means is that we were able to balance the economic, ecological and social dimensions," he told a news conference.

The commercial exploitation of deep-sea fish is a relatively recent phenomenon which began in the 1990s as stocks of the species nearer the surface dropped due to over-fishing.

France, Spain and Portugal, and to a lesser extent Britain and Ireland, are the EU nations which engage in the most deep-sea fishing, according to the European Commission, which was seeking deep cuts in catch quotas.

Over-fishing has very serious consequences for the vulnerable deep-sea fish stocks as they grow slowly, reach sexual maturity late and have long life-spans with low reproduction capacity. Deep-sea species are generally considered to be those that live at depths greater than 400 metres (1,300 feet).

The final agreement leaves fishing limits steady for black scabbard, red seabream, forkbeards and alfonsinos while catch quotas will be cut for roundnose grenadier and blue ling, which are considered to be more at risk from over-fishing.

Meanwhile, fishing of deep-sea sharks and orange roughy catchs, the most at danger from over-fishing, is to be phased out over the coming four years.

However, the World Wildlife Fund warned that the limits were too lax, damaging the credibility and coherence of the EU's fisheries policy.

"Deep-sea species are very vulnerable to fishing pressure because of their slow growth rate and low fecundity," the WWF's fisheries policy expert Carol Phua. "If the EU continues on this path, orange roughy and many other species may suffer a commercial extinction over the next two years," Phua added.

"Limited quotas reduction over four years does not address the urgency of the situation."

The ministers also reached a compromise for new fishing rules in the Mediterranean protecting the environment and biodiversity and in particular small fish.

Under the new rules, nets' mesh will have to be bigger to let small fish through and only small fishing boats using traditional gear will be allowed to fish within 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 miles) from coasts.

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