The toughest cutbacks yet in European fishing will be proposed tomorrow - coupled with warnings that the industry will be wiped out within a decade if they are not accepted.
The European Commission is looking for an EU agreement to scrap as much as 80 per cent of the European fishing fleet to ease the pressure on stocks which the scientists say are close to collapse.
The expert advice is to ban cod fishing entirely next year in the North Sea, Irish Sea and off the West Coast of Scotland - but the Commission knows that is beyond political reality.
Instead the Commission is proposing marginally less drastic action, and telling fishermen and politicians alike to take the medicine, or take the blame for the death of the sector altogether.
"We recognise that there is pain ahead and everyone understands what that means for fishermen's livelihoods - but if we don't act now, then in 10 years time the European fishing industry will be wiped out," said a Commission spokesman.
Warnings of the imminent demise of fishing have accompanied the annual wrangling over EU catch quotas since the launch of the Common Fisheries Policy nearly 20 years ago.
This time it is different: the problem is not just a reduction in main fish stocks but the elimination of some species entirely if relentless fishing is not curbed.
The European Commission says the current disaster is a direct result of fishermen and governments ignoring previous warnings about the need for fishing restraint on conservation grounds.
Fisheries Commissioner Mr Franz Fischler even declared "I told you so" when the latest damning scientific advice was published last month urging the closure of cod fishing grounds.
The experts said the crisis required the shut-down not just of cod fishing grounds - the species most at risk - but also of whiting, haddock and prawn fishing areas, where cod is a common "by-catch".