The external and commercial dimensions of the EU fisheries policy: An institutional approach applied to the whitefish case

• EU catches have decreased due to fish stock collapses and EEZs spread.
• Decrease in catches have conditioned the EU in his external and commercial policies.
• Market integration and substitution perception between fish products are increasing.
• EU is less and less able to affect the international price of whitefish.
• EU policies interests are moving from fishers to processors and consumers.

This paper discusses the connections that exist between several policy areas concerning fisheries, namely fisheries management and regulations in internal and external waters as well as commercial policies. An institutional approach is used to describe the system by indicating the causal interactions and feedbacks that exist between rules, stocks, catches, imports, and prices. The European Union, as one of the major players in the fishing industry and market, is considered as the case study. The key argument of the paper is that when catches decrease, essentially because of the use of inappropriate management tools and strategy, national interest moves from fishers to other categories such as processors and consumers, which involves several changes to external policies. The analysis presented herein shows that this is exactly what is happening in the case of whitefish. Furthermore, the changing habits and preferences of EU consumers have resulted in increasing substitution possibilities between different species, most of which are imported. This fact combined with the reduced level of EU catches means that the EU is decreasingly able to affect international prices.