EU Cuts Poland Cod Quota After Overfishing In 2007 LUXEMBOURG: April 15, 2008 LUXEMBOURG - European Union ministers agreed on Monday to reduce Poland's annual allowances over four years for fishing cod in the eastern Baltic Sea as pay back for busting the quota in 2007, officials said on Monday. The decision ends months of angry exchanges between Warsaw and Brussels over whether Poland caught too much cod last year. At one point, Poland even filed a lawsuit against the European Commission, which administers quotas, at the EU's highest court. Based on catch reports submitted by Warsaw, Poland exceeded its 2007 cod quota by 8,000 tonnes, the Commission says. It said Poland's fleet had too much capacity for the opportunities available to catch cod and made the situation worse with its poor control and enforcement of quotas. At a meeting in Luxembourg, the EU's 27 fisheries ministers agreed that Poland will be able to "pay back" the overshoot by annual quota reductions up to 2011 -- but must improve controls against quota-busting and also reduce its fleet overcapacity. "This is a regulation being put through rather quickly, to deal with Poland's overfishing, phased over four years," one EU diplomat said. Poland will see its 2008 cod quota for the eastern Baltic reduced by 10 percent of the amount overfished, with further cuts of 30 percent of that amount in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The EU divides its fishing quotas in the Baltic Sea into western and eastern waters, with cod stocks in the eastern zone far more threatened due to excessive and illegal fishing. Cod numbers in the western Baltic are in a slightly better state but still massively over-exploited with low yields, scientists say. Last July, the Commission ordered Poland to stop cod fishing, saying it had misreported its catch to the extent that the amount of fish actually caught were nearly three times that declared by Warsaw. Poland disagreed, saying that its quota was still far from exhausted. It also filed a lawsuit against the Commission at the European Court of Justice, the EU's highest court. (Reporting by Jeremy Smith) REUTERS NEWS SERVICE