Lobbying processes of the EU Common Fisheries Policy – who has power?

The setting of fisheries opportunities has been defined in the TFEU as a sole EU competency, decided by the EU Council alone and not through a co-decision process. The efficiency of a policy is also determined by those influential in the decision-making process. Recent political work on the fisheries aspects covered the major EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) 2013 reform. For example, (Orach et al., 2017), have shown through process tracing that information lobbying of interest groups played a major role in integration of environmental targets into the CFP. Others focused on the policy outcomes and showed the tension between punctual equilibrium (PET) and thermostat policy-making (Princen, 2009; Princen et. al., 2020), all focused on the years before the CFP reform. More recent work highlights process tracing of derivative regulations of the CFP such as regional Multi-Annual Management Plans, setting the ‘boundaries of operation’ for the Council decisions thus de facto limiting the maximum quota allocations they can produce yet compromising on less sustainable annual fishing quota decisions beyond the agreed fishing effort target of the CFP (Earle, 2021). With a few exceptions, the focus on interest groups in the context of the CFP remains largely understudied. This points to a gap in recent IGs involvement in current developments of fisheries policy, post-2013. Understanding the policy-making processes and the influence of interest groups is of high importance especially due to the flagrant failure of the CFP despite the reforms and existing governance structures and institutions. approximately 40% of European fish are overfished or depleted in biomass, and the high conflict level with a complex array of policy instruments and regulations to resolve the ‘wicked problems’ of environmental and socio-economic policies. To address this literature gap within fisheries policy domain, we developed a Social Network Analysis (SNA) theory for an empirical study of a CFP multi-level stakeholder network. We set out to better understand who influences decision-makers most, and whether is it mostly done through informational lobbying or via power dynamics and political support, to better explain the unsustainable policy outcomes of the CFP. We examined (i) the level of political actors’ informational lobbying through the exchange of information in order to determine if information is driving powerful networks to biased beliefs, and (ii) the CFP political support network, of whom stakeholders are supporting politically through collaboration cooperation and finance interactions. In addition, we measured the perceived influence of interest groups, through a quantitative stakeholder questionnaire capturing their organization’s policy goals and instruments’ preferences and networks. We also examine the bi-directional interactions of interest groups interacting with scientific bodies and institutions and active participation in the formation of scientific advice to policymakers. This analysis may also reveal whether interest groups are using lobbying information strategies directed towards biased production of scientific advice. Lastly, we compared the existing interest group EU-level composition and coalitions with the 2013 reform to examine the stability and salience of the interest groups’ coalitions on an EU-level.