Fishing Power Europe: The EU’s Normativity in Its External Fisheries Action

The book draws upon extensive research into both the international and EU legal frameworks relating to fisheries and the EU’s practice in its external fisheries relations. It consecutively discusses four sets of challenges: (i) to the EU’s normativity posed by lack of membership in global institutions; (ii) created notwithstanding membership in other global or regional bodies; (iii) connected to multileveled coercive action and (iv) to accessing foreign fishing resources. It claims that, while the EU’s normativity depends greatly on its internal and external powers, it is the EU’s inability to freely wield these powers that damages its normativity. To act normatively, the EU primarily needs the full Member States’ support, as its present constitution prevents it from acting completely independently from them.

Mihail Vatsov is Programme Manager with the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium.