The Common Fisheries Policy

Abstract

The second sentence of the section of the Treaty of Rome dealing with the Common Agricultural Policy declares that ‘Agricultural products shall mean the products of the soil, of stock-breeding and of fisheries.’ The inclusion of fisheries is not entirely illogical, since the industry shares many of the basic attributes of agriculture. Given the highly specialised nature of its human and physical capital, its supply tends to be highly inelastic in the short run; the price-elasticity of demand for its output, on the other hand, like that for agricultural products, tends to be rather low: the combination is, of course, a recipe for potential price instability. The income-elasticity of demand for its output is also low. Like farming, it is subject to random shocks arising from natural causes over which producers have no control. Like farming, also, the industry is made up (certainly so far as fishing in coastal waters is concerned) of a large number of small, self-employed producers of a particularly independent frame of mind.