The EU landing obligation has however made it illegal to discard Baltic cod since 2015.

Discarding is the practice of throwing caught fish back into the sea. The EU fisheries regulation states that all catches of cod must be landed and any individuals below 35cm in length cannot be sold for human consumption.

In 2018 ICES estimated discards of Eastern Baltic cod amounted to 3,403 tonnes (Table 7). In contrast 123 tonnes of undersized cod below 35cm were recorded as landed correctly in line with the landing obligation (Table 8).