1985: The EC reported that a total of 122 vessels 

 were withdrawn. Belgium sold 3 ships to The 

 Gambia and one to Senegal, turned 1 vessel into a 

 training vessel and 1 into a pleasure craft, and 

 scrapped the remaining 4 vessels. Denmark 

 converted 6 vessels into pleasure craft, scrapped 3 

 ships and sold one vessel to Greenland. All of the 

 Dutch boats were sold to Nigeria. The United 

 Kingdom scrapped a total of 25 vessels, sold 5 

 vessels, and refitted the rest, mostly for the booming 

 offshore oil business, pleasure/house boats, or diving. 

 The vessels ranged from small, coastal vessels (under 

 50-GRT) to fairly large, high-seas vessels, including 

 the 1,550-GRT British vessel, the Sir Fred Parkes."* 



1986: The EC scrapped 41 vessels, sold 41 vessels 

 to third countries, and converted another 241 vessels 

 to other uses. Although it was never officially stated, 

 it appears that the program was successfully 

 removing inefficient vessels and replacing them with 

 more modem vessels. 



The EC was faced with a major revision of the 

 CFP and its fleet management efforts when Spain and 

 Portugal entered the Community on January 1, 1986. 

 Both countries, but especially Spain, had large fishing 

 fleets (Appendices 3 and 18), but limited coastal 

 fishing grounds on which to deploy its vessels. Both 

 countries posed the additional problem in that both 

 their high-seas fleet as well as a substantial portion of 

 their coastal fleet are cable of operating off 

 neighboring EC countries with already fully exploited 

 fisheries. The two countries increased the size of the 

 EC high-seas fleet by 219 vessels, Portugal (74 

 vessels) and Spain (145 vessels). Clearly, the overall 

 EC fleet management effort would have to be 

 significantly modified. 



B. FLEET TRENDS, 1987 



EC officials increasingly saw the need to limit 

 the fishing fleets of member countries. Not only did 

 the integration of the Spanish and Portuguese fleets 

 present real problems that would require substantial 

 adjustments to the CFP, but fleet trends in various 

 countries reversed. Several countries reported 

 increases in the size of their fishing fleets. For the 

 first time in several years, the EC fleet actually 

 expanded in 1987. The increase in the size of the 

 fleet began as the spawning stock biomass of Atlantic 

 cod and haddock, in the North Sea, was beginning to 



decline; unfortunately, at that time the declines were 

 explained away as being a temporary biological 

 fluctuation. Few fishermen accepted the advice of 

 scientists who were growing concerned about the 

 future of some fisheries." 



EC member states attempted to correct the 

 situation in late 1987 when they agreed to establish 

 target goals for reducing the size of their fishing 

 fleets. The EC Commission approved the Multi- 

 Annual Guidance Program (MAGP) for the member 

 states in December 1987." The MAGP established 

 the first listing of fishing vessels effective January 1 , 



1987, by tonnage and engine power, and established 

 decommissioning objectives for December 31, 1989, 

 1990, and 1991 (Appendix 27). 



C. FLEET TRENDS, 1988-89 



EC officials concluded in early 1988 that efforts 

 to control the size of the fishing fleet were not 

 working. Indeed, the EC fleet was expanding 

 (Appendices 1-2, 13-14,17-18 and Figure 3-4). The 

 high-seas fleet, for example, went from 584 vessels 

 registering 615,000-GRT in 1988 to 607 high-seas 

 vessels registering 650,000-GRT in 1989. The total 

 EC fleet, however, declined from 96,700 vessels to 

 95,200 vessels. The EC temporarily halted the 

 awarding of grants for new vessel construction in 

 mid- 1988 because member states were not reducing 

 fleet tonnage by 3 percent and engine power by 2 

 percent as agreed in 1987. At the meeting of the EC 

 Fisheries Council in Cuxhaven, West Germany, in 

 April 1988, only Deimiark and Portugal were able to 

 prove that they were not expanding their fleets 

 beyond EC guidelines. During the December 22, 



1988, meeting of the Council, France argued for 

 additional time to meet the decommissioning 

 guidelines and the Commission agreed to the French 

 appeal. Accordingly, funding for vessel 

 modernization and new vessel construction was 

 resumed. As part of the agreement, the EC insisted 

 upon the establishment of an EC register of all 

 fishing vessels to exist alongside national registers." 



The EC continued to administer a fishing vessel 

 construction and modernization program that allowed 

 member-state fleets to expand without strict controls. 

 The result of this policy was that coastal and high- 

 seas fleets expanded rapidly and the effort to reduce 

 the overall size of the EC fishing fleet failed. The 

 implications of this policy became apparent in 1990. 



16 



