The conservation and management policy of the CFP: TACs, quotas and sustainability

Abstract

This chapter is the second chapter on the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). It studies the conservation and management policy which was finally adopted in 1983 as well as its successive reforms until the latest relatively major reform in 2013. After the introduction of the 200-mile fishing zone in the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean the European Community (EC) claimed fishing rights to a large area. Efforts to adopt a conservation and management policy for these EC waters only produced ad hoc and temporary solutions. But as the derogations from free access from the Accession Treaty of 1972 were expiring in 1982 there was pressure on the EC to adopt a more lasting conservation and management policy. In the meantime, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) had also ruled that the conservation of the biological resources of the sea was an exclusive competence of the EC. With slight delay a conservation and management policy was adopted in 1983, based first of all on national quotas and relative stability, but also a new 10-year derogation for the 12-mile coastal zones where states could reserve fishing for their nationals. Subsequently there were reforms of the CFP every 10 years, in 1992, 2002 and 2013. These reforms focused on reducing overfishing, eventually by introducing total allowable catches (TACs) based on maximum sustainable yield (MSY) founded on scientific data. By 2013 the Lisbon Treaty had made the European Parliament a co-legislator, giving environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) more access points.