The past year has seen the arrival of a Green Paper on the future of the Common Fisheries policy and a public hearing lasting three days in Brussels last June.
Since then there has been much debate and criticism. The Commission has listened, talked, argued and is currently finalising proposals.
Governments, fishing ministers, advisors, associations and fishermen have all had their say. Now the industry waits, with the outcome of the new CFP likely to have a direct impact on whether some European fisherman stay in business.
But the opinion of scientists and academics is also considered very important despite fishing science coming under heavy disparagement even in extremely well managed countries such as Iceland during 2001.
Dr Ella Ritchie of the University of Newcastle in the UK has studied the CFP in great detail as part of her political research into European policy making.
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Dr Richie's research has covered the CFP since 1998 when she first contributed to a publication on the subject.
She says the CFP is not a disaster but has many fundamental flaws. These include the fact that regulation is too centralised and not properly co-ordinated with other policies such as development and structural aids.
She also says that control and monitoring are too weak in the industry and fundamentally there is a lack of consensus on what the problems are between Member States.
"I believe that the CFP was created at a time when Europe had problems with their policy, its not a policy that can cope with the crisis that we have seen in European fishing in the past few years."
Dr Ritchie says the new CFP should include a number of short, medium and long-term solutions.
She says any reforms need to be sensitive to local and regional interests as well as the growing number of stakeholders in the industry.
She says the idea to set up Regional Advisory Committees (RACs) is a positive step. "Although I don't think re-nationalisation is what is needed because this would cause even more problems and confusion."
"What is needed is for the Commission to look at other alternatives to quotas and TACs," she says. From a distance she has admired the management structure of Iceland but warns that ITQs will not necessarily be a quick fix as areas where they have so far seemed to be affective have been homogenous island nations with small populations, a small number of ports and are surrounded by seas far from other territories.
She says they should work alongside the RAC framework and if introduced would be best suited to well defined areas in Europe.
Dr Ritchie also says lessons should be drawn from outside Europe and the Commission should not be afraid to look at developments in countries with similar Government structures such as Australia and Canada where they are managing large areas of fisheries with competing regions.
Aquaculture too should be considered more seriously by Europe. "To create a new policy for aquaculture would be unnecessary but the Commission should be looking at the economic and environmental aspects now."
She adds: "Perhaps in the future aquaculture will produce the lower grade fish products leaving fresh fish for the higher grade, quality end of the market."
Dr Ritchie also recommends a 50% cut in capacity overall with more cuts in the deep water sector than the inshore fishing areas.
But she believes tie-ups should only be used after capacity reduction and not in place of.
The Commission needs to pay special attention to diversification and what Europe can do for fisherman that want or have to diversify as a result of the changes in European fishing.
It has even been suggested that in the US, for example, sports fishing now brings in a annual revenue close to that of the US commercial fishing industry.
The most important thing for Dr Ritchie is that the final outcome of the CFP recognises the need for balanced interests and views.
She wants to see a more de-centralised system of management which includes longer-term planning. "Not only should the EU think about 2002 but 2020 is equally important as well."
Dr Ritchie's recommendations on the CFP
* Capacity to be cut by at least 50% overall with more cuts to be made in deep water sectors and less in inshore fisheries. She says fleet reduction cannot be subverted but cuts in vessel numbers result in higher capacity overall.
* Effort reduction and temporary tie-ups should only be used for adjustments after capacity reduction and not instead of.
* The European Commission must continue to integrate environmental
policy into the CFP.
* There are questions over the practicality of the ecosystem management in the short term but regional seas governance should be a long term objective that is compatible with RAC's.
Political governance structures must be made spatially and organisationally compatible with the ecosystems to be managed and not based on generalisations or on land based national or regional territories or authorities.
* RAC's should not be hindered by any one particular nation or sectors objections.
RAC's should also be given greater responsibility for drawing up management plans than was suggested in the Green Paper. Membership of RAC's should be as wide as possible within practical limits and should be linked to the goal of multipurpose management.
* ITQs should only be used within new RAC framework. They should be responsible for overseeing quota allocation and transfer within regional seas.
Experience of existing ITQs suggests that certain conditions must exist for them to be effective. Successful examples are:
1. Homogenous island nations with small populations and a small number of ports. They surround seas far from other territories.
2. Where homogeneity does not exist, substantial proportions of quotas have had to be devoted to buying out minority groups with claims on resources.
3. They are internal markets and not free market solutions.
Professor Ritchie says ITQs may be effective within well defined areas where monitoring and control can be more easily achieved. The EU will also have to be clear on the limits of historical fishing rights, or risk using most of the allocation of ITQs as forms of compensation. She says the Commission should consider charging for access rights alongside the allocation of quotas.
* Aquaculture should be considered more seriously within the CFP. There does need to be more investigation of both the economic and environmental aspects of the sector. A separate policy should not be considered as there could be a risk of corporatism and capture of the agenda by the aquacultural industry.
* The EU must listen to cases that are innovative and sensible even if they are minority views.
* More research needs to be done on the possibilities on multipurpose ecosystem management. However research should not be used as an excuse for inaction on urgent areas. In addition the industry must contribute to the cost of research.
* The Commission must not be afraid to learn from the successes and failures of structural changes to fisheries in other countries. The experience of large littoral nations such as Australia, the US and Canada are crucial as are the examples of smaller nations.
* The Union's external relations and commitment to sustainable development must not be compromised by rapacious fishing from EU fleets.
Fishing agreements should only be made with those nations ecologically and economically able and willing to make such agreements.
