The EC uses two important approaches in 

 managing its fisheries: the Common Fisheries Policy 

 (CFP) and international agreements. Both are key to 

 controlling the size and deployment of the EC high- 

 seas fishing fleet. 



n. COMMON nSHERIES POLICY 



The formulation of the CFP proved a very 

 difficult undertaking. The EC was formed in 1957. 

 Member states implemented several important 

 programs including the difficult task of formulating a 

 common agriculture policy. The EC fishing industries 

 constituted an economic activity much smaller than 

 the EC agricultural sector. Even so, agreement on a 

 common fisheries policy proved much more difficult 

 to negotiate. The difficulties escalated when the 

 United Kingdom entered the Community in 1972. 

 The UK entry substantially increased the size of 

 Community waters, adding important fishing grounds 

 in the North Sea. Britain's already beleaguered 

 fishing industry's concern over the possibility of 

 allowing other member countries access to its 

 extensive coastal grounds further complicated the 

 formulation of a CFP. As a result, agreement on the 

 CFP proved elusive. Discussions continued 

 throughout the 1970s with little progress. EC 

 fishermen were experiencing increasing difficulties as 

 major fishery stocks steadily declined because of 

 expanding fishing effort. Their increasing difficulties 

 left them unwilling to make the kind of compromises 

 required to formulate a common Community policy. 

 Internal EC differences were complicated by major 

 changes in international legal conventions. During 

 the 1970s, an increasing number of countries declared 

 200-mile coastal zones and limited or excluded 

 distant-water countries. U.K. fishermen who operated 

 extensively off Iceland were particularly impacted. 

 Idled distant-water fleets complicated the CFP 

 negotiations. Additional problems resulted from the 

 entry of Greece into the Community in 1981, 

 increasing the size of the EC fleet by 31,000 vessels 

 (mostly small coastal vessels). 



The EC member countries finally reached 

 agreement on a CFP on January 25, 1983. The legal 

 basis for EC policy is included in Articles 39, 42, 

 and 43 of the Treaty of Rome^ and in the Acts of 

 Accession of Spain and Portugal. The CFP was 



designed to take into account events which had taken 

 place in European and world fisheries requiring 

 certain new regulatory approaches. These events 

 include: (1) Changes in the Law of the Sea leading to 

 the proliferation of 200-mile EEZs which adversely 

 impacted the fishing fleets of several EC member 

 states. (2) The declining stocks of many key species 

 in the EC fishing zones which required the EC to 

 restrict fishing effort. 



The central components of the CFP included: 

 (1) adjusting the size of the fishing fleet to changing 

 conditions; and (2) intensifying management regimes 

 to promote the return of depleted fishery resources to 

 levels of maximum sustainable yields (MSY).'' The 

 CFP allowed the EC for the first time to address the 

 difficult problem of fisheries management on a 

 Community-wide basis . The CFP includes provisions 

 for increasing productivity, providing a fair standard 

 of living for producers, stabilizing markets, and 

 ensuring the availability of fishery products to 

 consumers at a reasonable price. A key feature of 

 any EC management program is regulation of the 

 fishing fleet. 



The CFP contains many provisions affecting the 

 fishing fleets of member countries. Effort has been 

 made to limit the fleet, with one EC program paying 

 member countries to reduce the size of its fishing 

 fleets.' The EC efforts to regulate the size of their 

 fishing fleets involve a multi-pronged approach: 



• Payments to scrap older fishing vessels;' 



• Incentives to move vessels out of depleted or 

 overfished zones into new fisheries, into 

 aquaculture operations,' or into non-competing 

 activities; 



• Incentives to enter into joint venture 

 operations in distant-waters where fishing rights 

 have been negotiated with non-EC countries. 



• Payments to sell vessels to non-EC countries. 

 Commercial pressures and the loss of distant- 

 water fishing grounds have affected fleet size. 

 Some EC programs during the 1980s, however, 

 have actually promoted vessel construction. 



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