Fisheries subsidies regulation lies at the intersection of international fisheries and international trade governance regimes. Although eradicating harmful fisheries subsidies cannot be a panacea for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, it is an essential first step to confront the problem head-on. The multilateral Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, adopted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in June 2022, provides an impetus for sovereign states to steer fisheries subsidies reform towards commonly agreed legality, sustainability and transparency benchmarks. This legal and policy investigation aims to give increased attention to the ultimate responsibility of national governments to exercise active fisheries jurisdiction over the identification and sanction of IUU fishing activities. With or without WTO prior judgements, a level of jurisdictional coherence is warranted to trigger a comprehensive and effective ban on IUU fisheries subsidies in as timely a manner as possible.

The SEAwise project works to deliver a fully operational tool that will allow fishers, managers, and policy makers to easily apply Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) in their fisheries. This SEAwise report evaluates the current state of affairs on ecosystem based fisheries management, including an overview of regional fisheries management measures in place and an evaluation of its effectiveness in terms of its achievement of policy objectives. The evaluation considers a selection of objectives representing ecological, social and economic sustainability dimensions from the two main policy frameworks, CFP and MSFD, for which the achievement of objectives may be compromised by fishing and that are likely to benefit from EBFM. For the purposes of SEAwise we consider EBFM from the perspective of a social-ecological system and work from the assumption that EBFM advances through an adaptive management process consisting of subsequent assessment and management cycles resulting in EBFM plans. A management strategy consists of a policy instrument and a management measure. We deliberately distinguish between the two because the former operates in the social system and is the mechanism (mainly dependent on the governance) to get the fisheries management measures, supposed to mitigate the fisheries impacts in the ecological system, implemented. Most of the main policy objectives covering ecological, social and economic sustainability were not achieved. The recently proposed Nature restoration law concluded that management measures aimed at restoring biodiversity of other species have largely been ineffective (EC 2022b). This conclusion was largely based on evaluations of species and habitats listed under the Habitat Directive and a formal assessment of the success in attaining other MSFD objectives is generally not possible due to lack of agreed thresholds (and indicators in some cases). The objectives stated in the CFP, MSFD and associated documents for a fisheries related aspects are often not supported by agreed estimated indicators, particularly for social aspects and ecosystem effects of fishing. Where indicators have been developed, there are often no agreed thresholds. Together, this either limits an evaluation of whether objectives are attained to specific elements such as fishing pressure, fished stock biomass and status of species assessed under the habitat directive or necessitates a high degree of expert judgement with the associated lack of transparency and reproducibility. There are, however, positive changes occurring. The measures aimed at reducing fishing mortality over the past 20 years have been highly effective in reversing the trend of overfishing in most of the EU waters. Nevertheless, they have not succeeded in restoring stocks to levels capable of producing MSY.

In this paper, a sustainability framework with a case application for UK’s Scottish fisheries has been developed which integrates aspects related to economic growth, social development, governance, biology, environment, and logistics. Scotland is the centre of UK’s commercial fishery sector however it faces challenges such as overexploitation, and changes in the governance structure following Brexit. The contributions of this study are threefold including (i) collecting and analysing primary data gathered from a diverse group of stakeholders in the Scottish fishery sector and scientific community, (ii) prioritising a diverse range of criteria in terms of importance in decision making from industry and scientific community perspectives, (iii) elaboration of the key management objectives in this region within the context of sustainable management of fisheries in the UK. The results of this stakeholders’ survey show that the key management objectives are reductions in overexploitation of stocks, inclusive governance, increase in transparency and simplicity of policy measures, reduction in marine litter, and increase in the efficiency of vessels. The analysis also shows that the industry group places a higher importance on socio-economic objectives such as increase in profit and employment compared to the scientific group. On the other hand, the scientific group prioritised the objectives such as reducing discards, bycatch, and impact on seafloor compared to the industry group. This study provides insight for the UK’s fisheries sector, and scientific advisory groups for the enhanced implementation of sustainable fisheries management policies.

Regionalisation was established to enable a bottom-up approach to fisheries governance by allowing lower-level authorities and stakeholders to step into the fisheries management process and design tailor-made management on a regional scale. A review has been undertaken to provide improved understanding on how regionalisation has worked until now and contribute information towards the European Commission (EC) report on the functioning of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Findings show that there are large differences in how regional groups operate and whether they have formal working procedures. The Advisory Councils (ACs) have clear working procedures and are transparent in the work that they do. However, this is not the case for the Member State Groups (MSGs), for which a lot of information regarding structure, working procedures and meeting outcomes are not publicly available. The onset of the Landing Obligation resulted in a large increase in the number of measures (i.e. discard plans) for several geographical areas. Stakeholders feel that there are gains and losses in participating in the regionalisation process, stating that regionalisation has provided a useful channel for individuals to put their points across and discuss them with a broader spectrum of stakeholders as opposed to writing individual position papers. The distribution of the ACs (different seas basins) is also seen as a gain as it provides EU-wide fora for discussions in fisheries management issues. The direct and closely working among different institutions (EC, ACs, scientists, MSGs) is also seen as an advantage of regionalisation. However, many of the perceived benefits have not yet been realised. Overall, regionalisation is necessary and has fulfilled its expectations although not in all fields. Regionalisation has given powers to Member States to perform functions that used to be the preserve of the EU. Without regionalisation, it would be difficult to get the same level of detail towards the various fisheries management and policy aspects. This is because, a one size fits all approach would miss a lot of detail and local specificities that apply in a particular sea basin. While regionalisation is seen as an improvement to the system that was there before 2004, stakeholders agree that more work is needed to apply regionalisation in practice. There is need for more transparency and more meaningful engagement and collaboration between AC and MSGs.

Regionalisation was established to enable a bottom-up approach to fisheries governance by allowing lower-level authorities and stakeholders to step into the fisheries management process and design tailor-made management on a regional scale. A review has been undertaken to provide improved understanding on how regionalisation has worked until now and contribute information towards the European Commission (EC) report on the functioning of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Findings show that there are large differences in how regional groups operate and whether they have formal working procedures. The Advisory Councils (ACs) have clear working procedures and are transparent in the work that they do. However, this is not the case for the Member State Groups (MSGs), for which a lot of information regarding structure, working procedures and meeting outcomes are not publicly available. The onset of the Landing Obligation resulted in a large increase in the number of measures (i.e. discard plans) for several geographical areas. Stakeholders feel that there are gains and losses in participating in the regionalisation process, stating that regionalisation has provided a useful channel for individuals to put their points across and discuss them with a broader spectrum of stakeholders as opposed to writing individual position papers. The distribution of the ACs (different seas basins) is also seen as a gain as it provides EU-wide fora for discussions in fisheries management issues. The direct and closely working among different institutions (EC, ACs, scientists, MSGs) is also seen as an advantage of regionalisation. However, many of the perceived benefits have not yet been realised. Overall, regionalisation is necessary and has fulfilled its expectations although not in all fields. Regionalisation has given powers to Member States to perform functions that used to be the preserve of the EU. Without regionalisation, it would be difficult to get the same level of detail towards the various fisheries management and policy aspects. This is because, a one size fits all approach would miss a lot of detail and local specificities that apply in a particular sea basin. While regionalisation is seen as an improvement to the system that was there before 2004, stakeholders agree that more work is needed to apply regionalisation in practice. There is need for more transparency and more meaningful engagement and collaboration between AC and MSGs.

The Working Group on Governance of the Regional Database & Estimation System (WGRDBESGOV) provides the governance function for both the existing Regional Database (RDB) and the new Regional Database & Estimation System (RDBES) that is currently in development. It is composed of representatives from ICES member countries and EU Regional Coordination Groups (RCGs). In this report the WGRDBESGOV reviews the RDBES developments performed during 2021 and plans for the work required in 2022 and beyond. It also considers how RDB data has been used and proposes changes required to the current Data Policy. The RDBES is planned to replace both the existing ICES InterCatch and RDB database systems and has an important part to play in increasing transparency and improving the quality of stock assessment within ICES. To this end three workshops have been planned for 2022 which will help data submitters with the transition to the new system (WKRAISE&TAF-sandeel, WKRDBES-RAISE&TAF and WKINTRO). Additionally, the Working Group on Estimation with the RDBES data model (WGRDES-EST) is continuously engaged to enable the ICES community to move forward with estimation using the RDBES data model. Following on from the RDBES test data calls issued in 2020 and 2021, a full RDBES data call is planned for 2022. It has been a desire since the inception of the RDBES that it can be used to fulfil the FDI (Fisheries Dependent Information) data call. However, it is not a straightforward process, as (1) the FDI data call is issued by the EU and requests different variables than the RDBES, and (2) the FDI includes estimations that need to be first calculated from the RDBES data. Despite these difficulties, both the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and Member States (MS) have expressed their interest in developing this feature of the RDBES, which will reduce MS workload and enhance data consistency in the different databases. During 2022, an intersessional subgroup will look further how to develop this. The need to ensure confidentiality in the data provided to end-users of scientific data and other interested parties, is a relevant issue that all data providers need to address when answering the RDBES Data Call. The essential problem is that at the required level of disaggregation it is common to have small groups of vessels in each segment. During 2022, an intersessional subgroup will address this, in communication with the Commission and the National Correspondents. Recognizing that we have not yet tested the production of stock assessment inputs from RDBES data, it is necessary to revise the roadmap and prolong the planned operations of RDB and InterCatch. We have found that the constraints are different between these databases and that RDB submissions can terminate earlier than InterCatch submissions. Anticipating a gradual adaptation of the RDBES and taking into account the need to utilize historical estimates in the InterCatch formats, it is desirable that the format for national estimates and the format for the stock estimates are compatible with the InterCatch input and output formats, respectively. The RDB and RDBES must ensure that data can be used by the RCGs and authorized groups in ICES whilst ensuring that only permitted users have access to the confidential data – the rules relating to this have previously been defined in the RDB Data Policy. In line with discussions at the ICES Data and Information Group (DIG), the Data Policy is split into two documents: a Data License, and a Data Governance document. It is important to remember that the ultimate success of the RDBES will rely on the effort and contributions from many people in the wider ICES/Data Collection Framework (DCF) community, from data collection to stock assessment, and not just the relatively small groups who attend the WGRDBESGOV or Core Group meetings. The WGRDBESGOV continues to encourage these contributions and recommend some concrete actions to take to enhance further the engagement of the whole ICES/DCF community.