28/08/2017 (Agence Europe) – Germany is continuing to overfish in the waters of the Baltic sea and is thus delaying the environmental, social, and economic benefits that come from having healthy fish stocks, according to a report published by the NGO Our Fish and the New Economics Foundation on Monday 28 August (see EUROPE 11732 and 11701). As well as setting catch limits above scientific advice, Germany “exacerbated its overexploitation of the vulnerable cod population by opening the western Baltic Sea … during the cod spawning season in February 2017, despite its official closure”, states the report (http://bit.ly/2wMm5uW ). Danish and German fishermen have been able to continue to fish for cod in the western Baltic Sea despite the temporary closure imposed because of the poor state of the stocks. (LC)