The European Parliament is going to have to adapt in certain policy areas, among them fisheries and maritime affairs. Once the Lisbon Treaty enters into force, fisheries will move into co-decision, giving MEPs a chance to have real clout over the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Meanwhile, the new Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) implies a more coherent approach to all maritime issues and policies and the current fragmentation of powers between different EP committees is irreconcilable with this goal. So the new Parliament must waste no time determining what type of governance it plans to put in place if it intends to have a say.

Co-decision is the ordinary legislative procedure established by the Lisbon Treaty. Fisheries is one of the areas where this procedure will apply for the first time. Until now, decisions in this sector were through the consultation procedure. This is of course necessary for successful decision making and for the Council’s final decision, but has no binding effect. Co-decision will make the European Parliament a ‘co-legislator’ having equal status with the Council of Ministers. This is undeniably a huge step forward in terms of the EP’s power and democratic legitimacy. There is a catch, though: the procedure will not apply to the annual decisions on total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas or to measures relating to fishing effort. All other decisions – including revision of the CFP, set to be concluded by 2012, the seminal issue of the new legislative period – will undergo the complete legislative procedure with two readings. Agreement between the Council and the EP will be vital for adoption of all technical measures for CFP management. When the two cannot come to agreement, conciliation can be launched, with the immediate consequence of lengthening the whole procedure.

The European Commission will be obliged to adapt or revamp its working methods. It will have to plan its initiatives further: define strategic priorities and objectives, plan the entire legislative process and the resources required to manage it, and draw up legislative proposals on solid and sustainable bases to avoid multiple changes and amendments. It remains to be seen whether the practice of the three institutions – EP, Council and Commission – of seeking first-reading agreements through early interinstitutional negotiations will also apply to fisheries or whether Parliament may try, at least initially, to assert itself in these new areas by systematically taking the two-stage procedure to completion.

WHAT GOVERNANCE FOR IMP?

The concept of an IMP is based on a holistic approach to all sea-related activities, which for now are governed by different sector-based tactics: fisheries, transport, energy, regional development, research, environment, tourism and spatial planning and supervision. IMP as proposed by the EU executive aims to do away with this fragmentation and this means devising a new form of governance. The Commission is carrying out this transformation internally through a steering group made up of the ten commissioners concerned, who are in charge of defining policy, an interdepartmental group for direct implementation of this policy, and a basic structure that is also considered to be a ‘moderator’, DG Mare. This organisation is expected to give more coherence to the new policy and foster synergy. The change of approach has already been endorsed by the Council and it has been agreed that the General Affairs Council will play the lead role. The upcoming Spanish EU Presidency (January to June 2010) has pledged to apply this blueprint.

So how will Parliament adapt to this new state of affairs? For now, proposals on maritime activities and/or coastal zones are addressed in the relevant EP committees (environment, fisheries, regional policy, transport) in a fragmented way. The IMP is only in its infancy at this stage. The green paper on the Integrated Maritime Policy COM(2009)163 opens the debate and the public consultation runs until the end of 2009. That gives the new EP time to organise itself. Commissioner Joe Borg (fisheries and maritime affairs) made a suggestion at European Maritime Day, in Rome, namely that the Committee on Fisheries could be expanded into a Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs (see Europolitics3758). It would take charge of all issues submitted under the IMP but would work in “closer cooperation” with the other specialised EP committees (the principle of ‘associated committees’ referred to in Article 47 of the current Rules of Procedure, which may nonetheless be changed by the new EP). Noting that it is out of the question for the Commission to interfere in Parliament’s internal organisation, Borg nevertheless highlighted the advantages of such an approach, mentioning the necessity of coherence. The matter will have to be decided at the new Parliament’s first plenary session (14 to 16 July), which will focus on the assembly’s organisation, including the constitution of committees for the new legislative period.