In a recent paper by Ramirez-Monsalve et al, the conflicting governance and management structures within the EU are identified as key impediments to the implementation of the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management (EAFM).
Some of the issues were highlighted as follows:
- The regionalised CFP with new institutions such as BALTFISH and the Scheveningen Group “has done little to facilitate the effective coordination with other marine/maritime policies required by an EAFM”.
- There are “unclear rules of collaboration between the ACs and the recently formed regional MS groups”.
- There is an “absence of a clear guidance on how to combine the MSFD wand CFP and their associated governance systems”. These asymmetries inhibit the EAFM.
- The MSFD states that fishing should be kept within Good Environmental Status (GES) levels. However, indicators and measures of this are developed independently by each MS. They are not even standardised within the same sea.
- Objectives are in conflict and in practice there is no clear way in which the “conflicting objectives of ecological sustainability, economic viability and social viability” are to be balanced.
- The Baltic multispecies plan “does not seem to represent a move towards integration of broader environmental concerns, for example GES descriptors of the MSFD”.
In essence, the CFP component of effectively management fisheries within an ecosystem framework will be particularly challenging to implement given the current institutional arrangements.
There are significant legislative differences between fisheries policy and wider marine management mean, and a lack of coordination between institutions. Moreover, under the regionalised CFP the informal rules for cooperation that have developed between regional bodies such as the ACs and BALTFISH lack transparency and the capacity to overcome institutional asymmetries.
In order to move forward and implement EAFM these institutional mismatches need to be overcome. Long-term sustainability goals can only be implemented when the EU moves away from decisions based on short-term needs.
The adoption of the Baltic MAP indicates that a new path towards collaborative fisheries management is possible, however, the lack of transparency behind the process and difficulties in reaching an agreement are indicative of the long road ahead to institutional improvement.