How to improve the link between the Common Fisheries Policy and the Nature Restoration Law proposal? - Archive ouverte HAL
Rapport Année : 2023

How to improve the link between the Common Fisheries Policy and the Nature Restoration Law proposal?

Résumé

This note explores how greater coherence between the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) proposal can be achieved. It first addresses the issue of the legal basis. We conclude that the NRL has a mainly environmental purpose and that even though fisheries are mentioned, they only constitute an incidental purpose. Therefore the legal basis of the NRL is the sole article 192 TFEU. This note goes on to explore links between the CFP and the environmental legislation. It shows that despite substantial integration of environmental concerns into the CFP, links between legislations remain difficult. Indeed, the principle of equal access to EU waters limits the ability of Member States to adopt environmental measures restricting fishing activity in the waters under their sovereignty or jurisdiction, hence the need for a specific procedure to ensure coherence between these legislations. In the CFP Regulation, this is established by article 11 and based on regional cooperation. It provides for the adoption by all interested Member States of a joint recommendation and empowers the Commission to adopt the measures through a delegated act. But the procedure remains underused. Accordingly, while the EU is in the process of adopting a new environmental legislation, the NRL, this note explores how this procedure can be improved to ensure greater coherence between the NRL and the CFP. It concludes that two main elements can be strengthened. An additional article dedicated to this link should be added to the NRL. The most suitable option appears to be to allow the initiating Member State to submit a recommendation even without the unanimous agreement of the other Member States having a direct management interest. In this case, the provision has to make clear which part of the initial art. 11 CFP procedure applies and the specific NRL elements to be included in the procedure. In addition, in order to avoid perverse effects, the NRL could indicate that the Commission will give particular attention to mitigating any negative effects of displacing the fishing activity to other sensitive areas. Governance issues also need to be addressed. Greater involvement of scientific bodies and stakeholders would appear to be key to avoiding deadlocks in the process. Finally, it is crucial to strike a better balance of the environmental obligations placed on interested Member States for discussing joint recommendations. Explicitly introducing flag State obligations and reporting on them could be a useful course of action
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Dates et versions

hal-04226963 , version 1 (03-10-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04226963 , version 1

Citer

Betty Queffelec. How to improve the link between the Common Fisheries Policy and the Nature Restoration Law proposal?. UBO, UMR AMURE, IUEM Technopôle Brest-Iroise, rue Dumont d'Urville, 29280 Plouzané; The Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament. 2023. ⟨hal-04226963⟩
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