Implementing the common fisheries policy in the Mediterranean through regional cooperation and regional fisheries bodies

Abstract

Against a background of rules and regulations that the New Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) adopted after 2002, the European Community (EC) is still faced with a situation today where most of the Mediterranean is considered as high seas and can therefore never quite be subject to the rules and regulations of the CFP. This in effect means that the CFP, and therefore the Community, does not have control over a vast amount of Mediterranean waters. Following a substantial overhand, the CFP adopted numerous measures of control, management and enforcement that help it reach its goal for the conservation and sustainability of the fish stocks. In the light of the remaining options to promote and enforce its policy in the Mediterranean, the EC initially relied on UNCLOS that, amongst other provisions, establishes that the State is duty-bound to ensure that the living resources are not endangered by over-exploitation. By embracing the principles of the FAO Code of Conduct, the Fish Stocks Agreement and, in particular, the FAO Compliance Agreement the EC has extended - via its Member States in the Mediterranean, the promotion to the Compliance with international conservation and management measures by fishing vessels on the high seas. In the course of this dissertation it comes out amply clear that in the reform of the CFP, although the Mediterranean problems were identified in a Green Paper in 2001, and in the Road Map of 2003, it is only with the drafting of an Action Plan specifically dedicated to the Mediterranean that a real effort was made towards a solution to this region's problems. The other approach taken by the EC in its attempt to come to terms with the specificity of the Mediterranean region rests not only on urging states to extend their Exclusive Economic Zones (which no coastal state has as yet declared) but also on its membership with ICCAT and GFCM. The EC largely depends on ICCAT's recommendations and resolutions where action is needed to fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and where issues of major interest to EU fisheries are concerned - like multi-annual management plans for key tuna and tuna-like species.