BRUSSELS, Belgium - Environmental activists blocked the entrance to the main European Union building Monday with a 10-foot-high wall to protest the bloc's refusal to protect threatened stocks.
"Shut down until the stocks recover," activists demanded, chaining themselves to the 60-foot-long wall that wrapped around the building entrance.
The protest kept some EU bureaucrats from getting to work. Police removed the activists and the wall by midmorning.
The stunt comes as EU ministers prepare for talks Tuesday on next year's fishing quotas.
Many fish stocks in European waters are dwindling to critically low levels -- but activists say fishermen are allowed to continue catching fish well beyond scientific advice.
"Every year, the ministers decide on the fishing stocks and how many can be caught and show their incompetence," said Greenpeace biologist Ires Menn. "That is why we are closing off the building."
EU's fisheries chief Joe Borg admitted that "most stocks remain overfished" in Europe.
But along Europe's Atlantic and Baltic coasts, fishermen are complaining that years of stringent quotas have brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. In France, fishermen have gone on strike to protest rising fuel costs that have cut further into their profit margins.
The prospects for the recovery of fish stocks were dim but there was some hope for cod. After years of decline, the ICES scientific agency announced that it would no longer recommend a full ban on fishing cod in the North Sea.
