The tables referred to in this chapter can be found online at www.cambridge.org/el-agraa

Introduction

The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) illustrates both the potential and the limitations of EU policy. Fisheries are an inherently difficult sector to manage. Issues such as competing views on property rights and tensions between scientists, fishers and conservationists are well known in fishing communities across the world. The crisis in most major fish stocks has heightened tensions in debates over the conservation and management of stocks. Key aspects of the sector, such as trade, processing and ownership, are becoming increasingly internationalized, but this has been a difficult process in a sector where individualism and a strong sense of community run deep. One of the challenges for fishery regimes is to compete effectively in the global market, but at the same time to cushion communities from social costs and economic decline.