Total allowable catches and fishing opportunity decisions of the Council of the EU – A voting power index approach

Abstract

The setting of total allowable catches (TACs) have been a part of the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy since its conception in 1983 and has been the main management tool of conservation of fisheries stocks in EU waters. TAC decisions of the Council are made behind closed doors, which has been the object of criticism. Previously voting power indices have been calculated and used to analyse Council decisions (e.g. EU budget) and institutional changes of the EU (e.g. Treaty of Lisbon), however not for EU TAC legislation and decisions. This paper looks at EU Council decision making for a subset of member states concerning TAC decisions for which the Council has exclusive competence in. Specifically, the paper looks at formal mechanisms of voting in the Council concerning EU TAC decision-making by calculating voting power indices for member states. Additionally, the paper looks at the changes in voting power due to the UK leaving the EU. Results indicate that the Council’s voting rules distributes voting power to member states with larger populations, but also distributes disproportionally voting power to smaller member states at the expense of medium size populated member states. This reflects previous results from the literature. The results do not undermine the importance of informal mechanisms such as consensus and coalition building among member states, but rather complement it.