Defining the compliance of Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy with EU law
We provide here (pdf file) a short statement, agreed with Ocean 2012, (www.ocean2012.eu) which explains how to determine whether the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, and its reform, operates in compliance with EU law. This compliance is essential not just in terms on legal principle, but also because such compliance will ensure the use of the ecosystem-based approach (pdf file) to marine management and the use of those marine management tools which are capable of restoring commercial fish stocks in our seas to something approaching their historic levels. The restoration of historic levels is important, not just in order to restore the biodiversitybiodiversity Biological diversity in an environment as indicated by numbers of different species of plants and animals. and fecundity of the marine ecosystem per se, but also in order to enable us to harvest fish at levels which assure EU citizens with “food security” from their own seas. Compliance of Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy with EU law is therefore a key political, legal and ecological necessity.
