European Commission plans to bring about a temporary worldwide ban on bluefish tuna fishing were voted down on Monday, a European Union source said.
"All the countries around the Mediterranean came out against" any ban on trade in the fish, prized by Japanese sushi lovers, said the source.
Supporters of a bid launched by Monaco want to see the fish placed on a United Nations-produced list of the world's most endangered species.
But while the Commission provisionally backed a temporary ban earlier this month, opponents preferred to wait for the latest evaluation of levels of stocks by scientists due next month.
Results will be analysed at a meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas in November.
According to a proposal put to CITES, the UN agency against illegal wildlife trade, tuna stocks are so fragile that the species should be classified as being under threat of extinction.
Some 80 percent of Atlantic bluefin tuna fished out of the Mediterranean ends up in the Japanese market.
Under the EU's qualified majority voting system, comfortably more than half of all votes, weighted according to countries' size, are required for issues to pass.
A fishermen's association grouping fleets from Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain had termed the plans "nonsense."
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