Regionalisation of the EU ’ s Common Fisheries Policy

Regionalisation has caught the imaginations of governments, stakeholders and academics, especially in northern Member States, as a potential driving force for reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. The scope for regionalisation, however, is limited by the provisions of the European Treaties which make no allowance for legislative powers to be exercised at the regional level. Realistically, it will have to rely on the delegation of decision making powers to Member States acting in concert. Against this background, the paper explores the opportunities for introducing effective systems of regionalisation through a series of questions concerning methodological approaches (best practice v first principles), how we construe the concepts of region and regionalisation, where to draw the boundaries between Commission and Member State responsibilities, and what do we want our systems to achieve. Four models are posited: an in-house solution (comitology); dispersal of DG staff to the regions; a standing conference of Member State administrations; and a newly styled RAC. These are briefly evaluated and the issue of regionalisation recontextualised in the emerging debate on CFP reform to determine their chances of adoption. 1. Why regionalise the CFP? A comprehensive common fisheries policy for the European Community has been in place for a little more than 25 years. At the time of its inauguration in 1982, the CFP was , in effect, a regional policy centred upon the North Sea but overlapping into neighbouring areas. Since 1982 the ‘common pond’ has expanded hugely through three major enlargements into southern Europe, the Baltic and the Mediterranean. But during those years of territorial expansion there has been little development of the basic institutional framework of governance. Today, we face a faintly ludicrous situation where the fisheries of one of the largest and most complex of maritime territories, stretching through 40° of latitude from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Canaries and 60° of longitude from the Azores to the eastern Mediterranean, is managed centrally from Brussels with an establishment probably no bigger than the planning department of an average sized local authority (Sissenwine and Symes, 2007). There has been a heavy price to pay for these contrasting tendencies of spatial enlargement and unchanging systems of governance. Top-down decision making, burdened with responsibilities for micromanagement, is perceived as remote, overly bureaucratic, out of touch and subject to undue political interference through the actions of the Council of Ministers. The system of management has failed to keep pace with changing circumstances. Attempts to incorporate principles of good governance and make real progress with an ecosystem approach have been hindered. As a result, the CFP is failing to make significant progress towards securing ecologically sustainable, economically profitable and socially relevant fisheries. If the Commission is to achieve the regime change it is looking for in 2012, real changes have to be made to the institutional structures that condition decision making. Two key issues must be addressed: fisheries management must take much closer account of the specificities of the regional ecosystems so as to advance the concept of an ecosystem based approach; and the process of decision making must be brought nearer to those most directly affected and harness the experience, knowledge and expertise of the fishing industries. Both conditions point to the need to regionalise the CFP. It may not be possible to alter the supremacy of the EU's central institutions (Commission, Council and Parliament) but it should be possible to ensure that detailed decisions – mostly to do with technical and tactical issues shaped by local conditions – are taken at regional level. The question is how? 2. What actually is on offer? The agenda for reform of the CFP, as set out in the Commission's Green Paper (2009), has won widespread approval among northern European member states (MS). At its heart – and, some would argue, the essential driving force of the reform process – is the concept of regionalisation: the idea of rebalancing responsibilities for fisheries management between the EU's central institutions and the regions through the transfer of tasks associated with micromanagement of fisheries from the centre to the MS. This seemingly radical principle is widely commended: governments are generally supportive and industry leaders,