Abstract
The Common Fisheries Policy is one of the oldest policies entirely delegated to the European Community since it is part of the Common agricultural policy. Indeed, in the Treaty of Rome, agricultural products are defined as “the products of the soil, of stock-farming and of fisheries” (Art. 32 TEC). As a result, the fisheries policy has to follow the same objectives as the CAP, i.e. to increase productivity, to ensure a fair standard of living, to stabilise markets, to assure the availability of supplies and to ensure that supplies reach consumers at reasonable prices (Art. 33 TEC). However, if these objectives could be reached in agriculture through the creation of a common organisation of markets, in fisheries this would not have been enough. This is due to a certain specificity of the sector: it is based on common and mobile resources. It is obvious that certain species overlap territorial seas' limits and this biological fact explains why a supranational management of fisheries was needed, different from agriculture, and not only regulating a market but also the conditions of production . It is only in 1983 that a complete Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is launched…and immediately some controversies appeared.
