PLANS for a new round of fishing cuts in the North Sea were last night labelled "another black day" for fishermen.

The European Commission is urging cuts in cod fishing in the North Sea and haddock fishing in the Irish Sea, all affecting UK fishermen.

Details of North Sea cutbacks have yet to be finalised because EU negotiations with the Norwegians over fishing must be completed first.

But cuts of nearly 60 per cent are being recommended when EU fisheries ministers meet later this month to thrash out next year's catch allowances for the EU fleets.

Earlier this year a temporary 40,000 sq mile ban was imposed on cod fishing in the North Sea, concentrated in Scotland and Norway, after scientists warned that cod stocks were so low that there was a serious danger of the collapse of the industry.

The ban was lifted in April but now the Brussels Commission says it has no alternative but to ask the trawler fleet once more to tighten its belt in the face of dangerously low stocks of fish in the sea.

The Commission is calling for a 52 per cent drop in haddock catches in the Irish Sea, a 20 per cent fall in permitted plaice catches off the west coast of Scotland, and ten per cent reductions in cod catches in the Irish Sea.

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment, Fisheries and Rural Affairs has suggested the scale of the proposed cuts will be challenged by the UK. "The Commission's proposals do seem to go significantly beyond the (scientific) advice for some stocks, and we need to study them carefully to see if they are proportionate," he said.