The EU hopes to complete a reform of its Common Fisheries Policy, which it launched in 2008, by the end of next year, according to Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki.

"I hope that by the end of next year we will have a new policy," she said at an informal gathering of fisheries ministers from the 27-nation EU in Vigo, the largest fishing port in Spain.

The EU needs a "turning point" for its policy because of "overfishing and overcapacity of the European fleet", she added.

Spanish Agriculture and Marine Affairs Minister Elena Espinosa, whose country holds the rotating six-month Presidency of the EU, said ministers had agreed on several points of the reform at the gathering. She cited the need to "find formulas to avoid the rejection" of dead fish that are caught by fishermen as well as the need to give a more active role to regional fisheries management organisations as examples.

Ministers also agreed on the need to "establish a difference between small-scale fisheries and industrial fisheries" but there was no agreement yet on how to define these, she added.