Maximum sustainable yield in the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy - a political history

Abstract

Abstract The incorporation of MSY into the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is traced from the original fisheries objectives in the Treaty of Rome of 1957 through its first mention in the CFP basic regulation of 2013 up to the recent Baltic Sea management plan, in which it has become operationalized. Emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the EU’s political processes, the impact of non-fisheries-related institutional power struggles and the consequences of political negotiations that include scientific concepts. Criticisms by Sidney Holt, of both MSY as a management objective and the use of surplus production models, are included.