by
M.J. Holden
Directorate General for Fisheries
Commission of the European Communities
Brussels
1. INTRODUCTION
Until 1977, management of fish stocks by means of total allowable catches (TACs) in the north-east Atlantic was carried out by the North-east Atlantic Fisheries Commission. At that time, management by an international organization was essential because the majority of fisheries limits did not extend beyond 12 miles. On 1 January 1977, all the member State of the European Economic Community (EEC), acting in common accord, extended their fisheries limits to 200 miles, or to the appropriate median line. In doing so, they followed a world-wide trend towards extended fisheries limits which were foreseen in the draft text of the UN Law of the Sea Conference. At the same time, the EEC decided to take over responsibility for the management of the fish stocks within its waters from NEAFC and the individual member States resigned from NEAFC. This decision could not have been taken until 200-mile limits had been declared but it also reflected increasing disillusion with the decision-making processes of NEAFC; although decisions on the size of the TACs and their allocation by quotas were agreed upon at the annual meetings of NEAFC, its objection procedure meant that these agreements were often never put into effect. There was also no procedure by which action could be taken against member States of NEAFC who exceeded the agreed quotas. The EEC framework of Community law decision-making gave the possibility of effective fisheries management.
2. THE EEC FRAMEWORK FOR DECISION-MAKING
Three Community institutions - the Council, the European Parliment and the Commission - are involved in determining TACs. The responsibility of the Commission is to initiate proposals on which the Council decides. The civil servants of the Commission (the Commission services) draft legislative proposals which are submitted by the Commissioner charged with the dossier to the Commission, that is, the 14 Commissioners acting together. If agreed by the Commission, they are then submitted to the Council. The Council consists of a representative at ministerial level from each member State; each minister attends the Council meeting which deal with the subjects for which he is responsible. Thus, there are a series of Fisheries Councils attended by Ministers for Fisheries. However, decisions concerning fisheries can be made at any Council meeting, with far-reaching consequences as will be described later (Section 5). Decisions made by the Council become Community Law. The Treaty of Rome which established the EEC lays down that, with some exceptions which do not concern fisheries, decisions within the Council are made on the basis of a system of qualified majority voting, if acting on a proposal by the Commission. However, the Council may act on its own initiative but decisions then have to be unanimous. The European Parliment has to be consulted on the Commission's proposals but its advice is not mandatory.1
3. OBTAINING ADVICE FROM ICES
As a result of a series of ‘Dialogue Meetings’ between ICES and the managers of the fish stocks, i.e. representatives of the various nations within those waters the various fish stocks occur), a routine procedure of asking for and receiving advice on TACs has become established. These Dialogue Meetings were organized on the initiative of ICES.
The now-established method is as follows. Each autumn, at the time of the annual Statutory Meeting of ICES, the Commission services submit a request to ICES for scientific advice on all the stocks of interest to it. The general terms of this request are that the “Commission requests advice on the state of a particular stock and, for the next year but one (that is, the request made in autumn 1982 is for advice for 1984), estimates of catches which would be obtained for changes in the fishing mortality rate of ± 50 percent of the present fishing mortality rate. The effect of these various catch levels on the size of the spawning stock biomass is also requested.”
TACs and quotas are based on a calendar year, with a few exceptions. The advice for most stocks is received in the course of the year prior to that which it applies; for example, advice for 1984 is received during 1983 and this gives rise to problems of timing because, for some of the most important stocks such as those of North Sea cod, haddock whiting and mackerel, the advice is not available until November. Even more difficulty is experienced with many herring stocks, for which the advice is not received until the May of the year to which it applies, in their present state of exploitation. These problems derive from the date of availability of biological data, which prevents assessments being made earlier. It results in a very tight time-table of negotiations between the EEC and third countries (countries which are not members of the EEC). For very short-lived stocks such as sprat, sandeel, Norway pout, it has so far proved impossible to collect the biological data, make assessments, give advice and then put this advice into effect within a time scale which allows for management; the fisheries have occurred before agreement can be reached.
In response to requests from the managers, ICES has changed its schedule of Working Group and ACFM meetings in order to provide advice on a time-scale which gives more time for implementing it, although severe problems still occur for the stocks listed above and are the cause of severe criticism of the Commission. The fishing industry needs to know the Community catch possibilities several months ahead for planning purposes, and negotiations between the Commission and the Council would possibly be concluded more readily if both parties were working to a deadline of reaching agreement by 1 January. These problems will not be resolved until the pattern of exploitation on these stocks is improved.
ICES is an entirely independent scientific organization, although supported financially by the countries which are members of it. Although most of the member States of the EEC are also members of ICES, the EEC is not a member and plays no role whatsoever in its decision-making processes.
Attendance at the meetings of ACFM is limited to its members. It can respond to requests for advice in whatever way it thinks fit, giving additional advice to that requested if it considers this necessary, or refusing to respond to the requests if it considers that there are insufficient data upon which to give sound advice. Both at the level of its Working Groups and at that of ACFM, ICES is totally scientifically independent. This is extremely important because it means that its advice is seen to be objective even if it is not always acceptable to all parties. The advice which the Commission receives now is in the form of options, ‘exploratory advice’, as it has been termed by Hoydal (1982). This is in marked contrast to the situation which existed until 1980, when the advice was given in terms of a recommendation for a specific TAC based upon a management objective decided by ACFM (‘normative’advice - Hoydal, 1982). Largely at the instigation of the Commission, which took the attitude that it was the responsibility of the managers to decide the management objectives and not that of ACFM, the method in which advice is framed was changed. ACFM now gives advice in terms of catches which are ‘within safe biological limits’ or a ‘preferred TAC’. Only when the stock is in danger of a recruitment failure, does ACFM give specific TAC recommendations.
There are increasing demands for longer-term predictions, in order that the fishing industry may be given the opportunity to plan, but to date ICES has been able to respond to only a very limited extent to this demand. The levels of catches from many of the stocks are so heavily dependent upon the incoming year-class that it is impossible to forecast catches until the size of this year-class has been estimated accurately and this can be done only in the year preceding that to which the TAC will apply.
Another feature of the advice given by ICES is that it is deterministic in character, i.e. it does not take into account sampling errors in the data or any other sources of variability. It could be very useful to managers in assessing the risks associated with different management options (see Section 7), if stochastic analyses were made, i.e. notably to take into account fluctuations in recruitment. So far, ICES has not adopted this approach and, to the extent that it has given predictions of long-term catch possibilities, it has usually chosen to base these on the lowest observed levels of recruitment. Predictions based on the ‘worst possible case’ hypothesis contain a very high safety factor but are of little use to managers as a basis for management because they are unrealistic.
4. USING THE ADVICE : OBJECTIVES
The general form in which ICES gives its advice is that of a graph showing catches as a function of fishing mortality rate. In order to decide on the TAC, it is necessary first to decide on the management objective for the coming year or, alternatively, to decide what the TAC will be for a management objective that has already been decided. As a result of the way in which the request for advice is framed, the management objective has to be defined in terms of a desired fishing mortality rate or a desired size of the spawning stock biomass. This problem did not exist when it was ACFM which decided upon the management objective and specified the TAC in terms of that objective.
The EEC is concerned with two types of stocks: those which are found exclusively within the EEC waters - the autonomous stocks, and those which occur in both EEC waters and those of another State which is not a member of the EEC - the joint stocks.
4.1 Autonomous stocks
The Council has never taken a decision about what should be the management objectives for autonomous stocks and it has, therefore, been left to the Commission to decide the basis on which it should propose TACs. Until and including 1982, its proposals were based on the following objectives:
Closure of fisheries on stocks which were in danger of or had suffered a recruitment failure
Achievement of exploitation at the rate of Fmax on all stocks, by a reduction of fishing mortality rate by 10 percent each year for stocks exploited at greater than Fmax
These were the same as the objectives set by ACFM.
As it became increasingly obvious during the course of negotiations within the Community framework that objective (b) could not be achieved, it was modified in 1982 to setting TACs which would achieve a stabilization of the fisheries at the existing level of the fishing mortality rate. Once this is achieved, then the objective is to set TACs which will reduce the fishing mortality rate by about 10 percent a year on stocks which are over-exploited, but not necessarily to the level of Fmax. The final decision will depend upon how stocks react to reductions in the fishing mortality rate, if and when this is achieved. Both multi-species theory and energy-flow models suggest that, if Fmax were achieved on all stocks, the consequent catches would not be those predicted on the basis of the parameters used in the existing models.
4.2 Joint stocks
In theory, there should be a management objective agreed upon between the managers of joint stocks. The most important joint stocks for the EEC are those which are shared with Norway and, at present, there are no agreed management objectives. With few exceptions, Norway adheres to the management objectives (a) and (b) as described above. The EEC and Norway therefore find themselves in conflict in deciding TACs for joint stocks because the Norwegian objectives results in lower TACs for the majority of stocks than that of the EEC. These conflicts are resolved by negotiation.
5. NEGOTIATIONS WITH THIRD COUNTRIES
For joint stocks, the TACs and the share of these available to the EEC are decided by:
(a) Direct negotiation with the other joint owner or owners of the stocks
(b) Negotiations within the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission (IBSFC)
or (c) The Commission itself in the one instance in the north-east Atlantic where negotiations have not been completed (Iceland)
Both in the case of negotiations directly with third countries and in the IBSFC, the Commission services have the responsibility for undertaking the negotiations, but all interested Member States are present at the negotiations and are consulted before and during the negotiations. These negotiations have two objectives:
Fixing the TAC for each stock
Deciding how each TAC should be divided between the different owners
The scientific advice of ICES forms the starting point of all the negotiations. To re-emphasise a point made earlier, the objectivity of its advice makes this possible. In the IBSFC, this advice is considered in relation to the stated needs of the fisheries of each member country of IBSFC until, by a process of negotiation, a final TAC and its division between member countries is agreed. In the event of failure to reach agreement, each member country determines its own quota.
The problems are fewer in the case of negotiations directly with a third country with which the EEC has a ‘Framework Agreement’, which requires the negotiation of an annual fisheries agreement on TACs and allocations between the two parties on the basis of reciprocity. The best example of the operation of one of these Framework Agreements is that with Norway. The EEC and Norway have:
Agreed that certain stocks are joint stocks and, based upon a detailed examination of scientific data on the distribution of the stocks between the waters of the EEC and Norway, have decided on the proportion of the stock which inhabits the waters of each owner - “the agreed ownership shares”, e.g. North Sea cod, haddock, whiting, saithe, plaice.
Agreed that certain species, although occurring in the waters of both owners, should be treated as autonomous stocks for the purposes of management, e.g. sprat, Norway pout.
Agreed to differ on certain stocks which the EEC claims as an autonomous stock and Norway claims as a joint stock, e.g. the western mackerel stock.
It has only been possible to agree on ownership shares for those stocks for which very detailed scientific data exist on their distribution, as shown by catches and egg, larval, O-group and young-fish surveys.
For those stocks for which there is an agreement on the ownership shares, the share of that TAC available to each party is automatically decided once the TAC is agreed. This does not give either party the catch possibilities it wants. The EEC needs more than its agreed share of North Sea cod, haddock, saithe and whiting. It also needs catch possibilities in the Barents Sea stocks of cod, haddock, saithe and redfish, to satisfy the needs of the distant-water fleets of France, Germany and the UK. The stocks in the Barents Sea are joint Norway/USSR stocks, for which those two countries have to enter a similar set of negotiations. Norway is, therefore, limited as to what it can allow the EEC to fish of these joint stocks by its agreement with the USSR on the size of its shares. Norway wants to catch a wide variety of species in EEC autonomous stocks. These requirements are met by negotiating trade-offs between the various autonomous stocks.
To facilitate these exchanges, the EEC and Norway have agreed on a series of ‘cod equivalents’ which weigh the tonnages of the different species in terms of their relative market values, approximately. For example, 1 ton of cod is equivalent to 0.87 tons of redfish and to 0.77 tons of saithe. These agreed cod equivalents mean that an equitable balance can be struck very easily, without having to re-negotiate each year how much one species is worth relative to another. While it does take hard bargaining to decide how much each side is prepared to allow the other from either its share of the joint stocks or its autonomous stocks, the framework in which these negotiations takes place has already been decided and this facilitates the negotiations.
In the case of Iceland, with which negotiations have not been successfully concluded because it does not allow EEC vessels to fish in Icelandic waters, except for Belgian vessels covered by an old but still operative agreement, the EEC unilaterally decides its share of any joint stocks. Although there is no agreed division of the joint stocks, discussions at both the scientific and negotiating levels have taken place as to what these might be, so preparing the ground for a future “Framework Agreement”.
A final point is that all the coastal states involved have more than the capacity to take the TACs. Therefore, negotiations over surplus catch possibilities do not take place with countries outside whose fisheries limits the fish stocks occur.
6. ALLOCATION BETWEEN MEMBER STATES OF THE EEC
After all the negotiations have been finalized, the EEC has a list of catch possibilities (TAC) in five different types of stocks:
Its own autonomous stocks, all of which are available to the EEC
Its own autonomous stocks, parts of which have been traded for catch possibilities in autonomous stocks of a third country or for additional catch possibilities in a joint stock, as described above
Joint stocks, in which it has negotiated TACs and its share of the TACs, as described above
Autonomous stocks of one or more third countries
Stocks outside exclusive fisheries limites, e.g. NAFO stocks
The sum of all these catch possibilities provides the total EEC catch possibility for the calender year.
The TAC is the management tool but the TAC has to be divided into quotas between Member States, for two reasons:
Effective management is impossible if the TAC is not divided into quotas, because the fishing boats of each Member State would otherwise compete in order to maximize their share of the TAC before it was exhausted, leading to disruption of the industry once the fishery was stopped
Member States want to have guaranteed shares of the TACs in order that they can plan their fleet development, marketing, etc.
Proposals for the allocation of TACs by quotas are prepared by the Commission services. They are based on criteria which were formalized by a Council declaration in May 1980 on the Common Fisheries Policy, which stated that the policy should be based on, inter alia, the following guidelines:
“Fair distribution of catches having regard, most particularly, to traditional fishing activities, to the special needs of regions where the local populations are particularly dependent upon fishing and the industries allied thereto, and to the loss of catch potential in third country waters (Official Journal of the European Communities, No. C 158 of 27/6/1980, page 2).”
In allocating quotas, the Commission has interpreted these guidelines as follows:
“Traditional fishing activities”: average catches in the period 1973–78, less industrial by-catches beyond permitted limits and human consumption species caught directly for reduction to meal and oil.
“Special needs of regions where the local populations are particularly dependent on fishing”: these regions had been defined by the Council as Greenland, Ireland and north Britain (the so-called “Hague Preference” areas, after an agreement by the Council reached at the Hague in 1976) and the special needs were interpreted by the Commission as:
For Greenland: a major share of the catch possibilities in Greenland waters
For Iceland: doubling of the 1975 catches by 1978
For north Britian: maintaining a minimum catch possibility equal to the landings in 1975 by vessels less than 24 m long at ports in northern Ireland, Scotland and along the east coast of England as far south as Bridlington
“Loss of catch potential in third country waters”: the difference between what a Member State is actually allowed to catch and what it would have caught if there had been no extension to 200-mile limits. What it would have caught is calculated as its average percentage share of the particular stock for the period 1973–76 multiplied by the TAC, if known, or the estimated TAC, otherwise.
This declaration was made by a Council of Foreign Ministers. It made no mention of how much weight was to be placed on each criterion.
The Commission services developed a mathematical model which took into account the three criteria. The results from this model, however, only served as a starting base for the allocation of quotas, stock by stock. Member States wanted not only to have specific proportions of each TAC but some Member States also demanded specific proportions of the total catch possibilities. The situation was further complicated by the fact that some demands were made in tonnages and others in percentages. This had a potential “gearing” effect because, if the proposed quota of one Member State had been increased by a specific tonnage, which would also have increased the TAC by a similar amount, the quota of a Member State which had demanded a specific percentage of the TAC would also have been increased. For this reason, the Commission resisted such demands and negotiated within the TACs for each stock and the total of these TACs.
Until the agreement on the Common Fisheries Policy, the Council had never been able to agree on the quota proposals put forward by the Commission and had only once, in 1980, agreed on the TAC proposals. Each Member State naturally emphasized that part or parts of the Council declaration which suited it best. Those Member States which had no distant-water fisheries and which did not include areas especially dependent upon fisheries saw no reason why their traditional fisheries should be disrupted by being made effectively to transfer fish to other Member States who benefited from one or other of the other two criteria. At the same time, the two Member States which had suffered most from being excluded from third country waters objected to the indequacy of the compensation which they were being offered. Ireland considered that its fisheries should continue to be allowed to expand after 1978, even though the stocks on which it fished were over-exploited and such expansion could be achieved only by either allowing increased over-exploitation or transferring fish from other Member States.
The whole argument took place against a background of steeply rising fuel prices and stagnating market prices. Between 1973 and 1981, fuel prices in the EEC rose by the order of 1,000 percent whereas the average price of fish, in real monetary terms, rose by probably less than 200 percent. In the same period, interest rates peaked to 15–20 percent. One of the few ways which the fishermen could see to overcome their problems was to be allowed to catch more fish. Ministers in the Council were under intense political pressure not to agree to any proposals which would result in smaller catch possibilities for their fishermen and to increase them if at all possible.
The Commission was determined to maintain its responsibilities in respect of conservation of the fish stocks and refused to table proposals which would allow fishing to expand. In this it was usually supported by the UK and Ireland, which took a strong stand in respect of the advice given by ICES. However, for domestic political reasons, the UK was trying to obtain a fisheries package which included a whole series of preferential rights over much of its waters within its fisheries limits. The UK insisted that the package had to be agreed upon as a unity and would not allow TACs and quota allocations to be agreed to separately. It was able to do this by declaring that fisheries was of vital national importance and invoking the “Luxembourg compromise”. At Luxembourg in 1966, it was agreed not to out-vote a member State whose declared vital national interests were affected.
A Common Fisheries Policy was eventually agreed upon on 25 January 1983. Three key elements were involved. Firstly, the stumbling block of the question of access by one Member State to the waters of another was satisfactorily resolved on a long-term basis, thus enabling the UK to agree to other measures. Secondly, the Commission tabled proposals that give the quota proposals of 1982, if accepted, ‘staying power’ (see Section 7). Thirdly, by making minor increases in the TACs for some autonomous stocks and one major increase, and by negotiating with Norway increases in the TACs for certain joint stocks, the Commission was able to improve the catch possibilities for the EEC in 1982. As a result, it was able to table a set of quota allocations which (a) were in accordance with its management objectives, and (b) met by the criteria of the Council declaration of 30 May 1980.
The one major concession which the Commission had to make was to increase the TAC for the western stock of mackerel (that inhabiting the sea area west of Scotland, west and south of Ireland, western English Channel and the Bay of Biscay) from the 272,000 tons recommended by ACFM to 401,000 tons. This stock is being rapidly depleted and it is predicted that it will suffer a recruitment collapse in approximately four years' time if fishing on it is not severely limited. At the same time, it is one of the most important EEC stocks, particularly as it is one of the few stocks which can be exploited by distant-water vessels which can no longer fish third-country waters. The Commission was faced with the predicament that, if it had not increased the TAC on this stock, agreement on TACs and quotas would almost certainly not have been reached. With no agreement, free fishing on the stock would have continued and predicted catches in 1983 in this case were 750,000 tons. The agreement in 1982 will result in more effective conservation than if a lower TAC had not been agreed upon.
7. PROBLEMS OF ALLOCATION IN THE FUTURE
The principle of allocation of quotas is laid down in the regulation which established a Community system for the conservation and management of fisheries resources, the so-called Basic Regulation (Regulation - EEC - No. 170/83 of 25.1.83). Under this regulation “catches available to the Community … shall be distributed between Member States in a manner which ensures relative stability of fishing activities on each stock considered”. This implies that, generally speaking, the quota in each stock for each Member State will be the same percentage of the TAC for the current year as that agreed upon in 1982.
However, there are still three problems which face the EEC: (a) the establishment of TACs for autonomous stocks, (b) the specific problem of the western mackerel stock, and (c) allocation of quotas in the herring stocks.
As stated, in Section 4.1, the EEC has not got agreed management objectives for the establishment of TACs. Until the Council can agree on what the objectives will be and also on the long-term strategy and the way in which it is to be implemented, it appears inevitable that there will be an extended round of negotiations within the Council each year on the exact level of TACs. The situation will become particularly acute if there are big declines in one or more of the major fish stocks. There will be little point in having an automatic mechanism for fishing quotas if the EEC cannot agree on TACs.
The EEC will have to face this problem for the western mackerel stock in 1983. To continue to exploit the stock at its present rate will result in its inevitable collapse, with the consequent collapse of the fishing fleets which are largely dependent on the stock. To avoid this, the EEC will have to decide on the extent to which short-term benefits from exploiting the stock at a higher rate than it can withstand can offset the long-term benefits of cutting back the fishery drastically.
Alternative catch possibilities in the recovering stock of herring may enable the required reduction in the TAC to be made. Otherwise, the EEC will be faced with a severe test of its responsibilities in fish-stock conservation.
Because many of the herring stocks in Community waters were either unable to support any fishing or only limited fishing in 1982, allocation of quotas between Member States was ‘ad hoc’. For this reason, it has been agreed that these allocations cannot be used as a basis for allocating quotas in future years. Although the Commission has proposed several ways in which the criteria of 30 May 1980 could be used to allocate future quotas, none has proved acceptable as yet.
Considering the longer-term future, it appears that the method of deciding upon TACs must evolve, if not their allocation by quotas. The demand for long-term forecasts implies that recruitment will have to be treated stochastically rather than deterministically, as mentioned in Section 3. This carries the implication that decisions will have to take into account the degree of risk associated with different courses of action. The Commission has already taken a step in this direction (Beddington, 1982). There is also the possibility of managing interacting fisheries and species interactions, by setting TACs which will attempt to maximize economic returns. For example, would it be more profitable to stop certain sprat fisheries in order to prevent the inevitable by-catch of young herring and thus to increase the yield from the herring fisheries?
8. ENFORCEMENT
The EEC has yet to face up fully to the problems of enforcement of quotas. Member States are obliged to submit to the Commission the catches of all fish species which are under TAC and quota regulation by the 15th of the month following their capture. The original regulation which required this was Council Regulation (EEC) No. 735/80 of 26/3/1980, which was superceded by a Control Regulation (Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2057/82 of 29/6/1982 on 1 January 1983). The Control Regulation also commits Member States to stop fisheries on stocks once their quota is exhausted. The Commission has to be informed and then will make a regulation to close the fishery, thus ensuring Community competence in the management of fish stocks. Alternatively, the Commission can do this independently of the Member State if it considers that the quota has been exhausted.
In those cases in which the EEC has an agreement with a third country concerning its share of the TAC, and this agreement has the force of Community law because it is embodied in a regulation agreed to by the Council, the EEC has to stop the fishery once the EEC's agreed share has been caught. This is done by monitoring catches, using the catch reporting system described above. The delays in this system plus the delays in getting legislation into force (five working days at minimum) mean that the EEC share of the TAC may be considerably exceeded. Besides being administratively inefficient in ensuring effective control, it is also practically inefficient as the regulations are introduced at very short notice with the possibility of severe disruption of the industry.
If fisheries management by quotas is to become acceptable, a more rational method of stopping fisheries is required. Firstly, Member States should take measures to ensure that their quotas are caught at a rate which will largely avoid the need to stop fisheries. Secondly, by taking into account the pattern of the particular fishery in previous years, they should predict the date on which the quota is likely to be exhausted, so that measures can be prepared well in advance and the industry warned of the closure date a month or more beforehand. The Commission services are already working in this direction. Member States which exceed their quotas will be liable to be taken before the European Court by the Commission.
9. SUMMARY
In taking over responsibility for fisheries management in its waters from NEAFC, the EEC considered that it could provide more effective management. Up until 25 January 1983, it had been unable to do so, although it was almost certainly true to say that NEAFC would have done no better under the circumstances. With the establishment of the Common Fisheries Policy, it has the possibility of doing far better.
In contrast to NEAFC, once an agreement is reached at Council level, it is Community Law, applicable in all Member States, unlike the NEAFC agreements which needed to be implemented by national legislation.
Over the last three years, the EEC has been able to change the system of giving advice to one which is more suited to its needs. This has now become a matter of routine which presents few problems. Additionally, ACFM has ensured that Working Group reports contain all the basic data upon which the assessments are based, so examination of the results of alternative strategies can be made. As yet the Commission services have failed to exploit this possibility, for lack of both human and technical resources.
Negotiations within the Council have been characterized by a determination on the part of each Member State to maximize both the TACs and the share of these TACs allocated to it. This is not surprising, given the political pressure on the Ministers of the Member States from their fishermen, who are severely stressed economically.
The problem of setting TACs will remain until the EEC can agree on a set of management objectives. This is likely to prove difficult because the fisheries of the EEC are “open access”. New problems are likely to arise. Enforcement of quotas will certainly bring increased problems of evasion and cheating; these are already occurring, to the extent that they are threatening the whole basis of scientific advise because accurate catch data for some stocks are no longer available. If this continues, it could wreck the whole foundation of fisheries management based on scientific advice.
A range of control measures will be in force but the history of fisheries is that fishermen have usually found it easy to circumvent control measures because of the nature of fisheries.
These problems may be alleviated to a certain extent because there is money available under the EEC's structural policy for scrapping surplus vessels and laying up boats for which there are no immediate prospects of employment. However, this will not stop fishermen entering the fisheries or improving the catching power of their boats, if they can secure the necessary finance from non-governmental organizations and they think that the investment is worthwhile.
On 25 January 1983, the EEC solved most of the problems associated with establishing a fisheries management system based on TACs and quota allocations. That was a success story in itself. However, the EEC will be unable to rest on its laurels because it is now faced with the problems of running this system.
10. REFERENCES
Beddington, J.R., 1982 Economic studies on the implications of re-opening the North Sea herring fishery. CEC Internal Inf.Fish., (11)
Hoydal, K., 1982 From normative to exploratory advice on fishery management and the general framework of advice. ICES CM 1982/Assess. 5:21 (mimeo)
