The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the fisheries policy of the European Union (EU). It sets quotas for which member states are allowed to catch what amounts of each type of fish, as well as encouraging the fishing industry by various market interventions. In 2004 it had a budget of €931 million, approximately 0.75% of the EU budget.
The common fisheries policy has been criticised by fishermen who say it is threatening their livelihoods, although some scientific research has suggested that fishing stocks were in decline long before the policy came into being.
When it came into force, the Treaty of Lisbon formally enshrined fisheries conservation policy as one of the handful of 'exclusive competences' reserved for the European Union, to be decided by Qualified Majority Voting. However, general fisheries policy remains a "shared competence" of the Union and its member states. Thus decisions will still be made primarily by the council of ministers, as is the case now.
The common fisheries policy was created to manage fish stocks for the European Union as a whole. Article 38 of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which created the European Communities (now European Union), stated that there should be a common policy for fisheries.
Read more about Common Fisheries Policy: Importance of Fishing, Mechanisms of The CFP, International Relations, Compliance, Funding Provision, Fishing and The Environment, Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words common and/or policy:
“Governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“U.S. international and security policy ... has as its primary goal the preservation of what we might call “the Fifth Freedom,” understood crudely but with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privilege is protected and advanced.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)