AFP - The European Union has reduced fishing quotas for haddock and other key catches in 2010, covering waters in the Atlantic, the North Sea and the channel between France and England.

Fisheries ministers agreed at late-night talks on Tuesday to reductions, compared to 2009, of 25 percent for haddock off western Scotland and 20 percent for sole in the eastern channel.

They also called for cuts of between 15 percent and 35 percent for cod in different areas, with the exception of west Scotland and the Celtic Sea (between Cornwall and Brittany).

Norway lobster quotas in Porcupine Bank were also cut by nine percent, those for southern anglerfish by 15 percent and whiting off Scotland and in the Irish Sea 10 percent, according to the full plans published Wednesday.

Animal rights campaigners praised Brussels for banning fishing of two shark species, but expressed disquiet at other quota changes agreed.

Ministers set at zero the allowable catch for the porbeagle and spurdog sharks, which "will allow the European populations to rebuild," said Sonja Fordham of the Shark Alliance.

However, more generally, Xavier Pastor of Oceana Europe said the EU's decisions on quotas "ignore scientific recommendations... condemning the principal commercial species and the fishing industry itself."

Baltic and Black Sea quotas were agreed earlier.