The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the EU regulation for sustainably managing European fishing fleets and conserving fish stocks. According to Article 2 of the CFP: “The CFP shall ensure that fishing and aquaculture activities are environmentally sustainable in the long-term and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits, and of contributing to the availability of food supplies”.
The fisheries and aquaculture sector in the European Union (EU-27) is relatively significant in terms of fish production in absolute terms, with annual fisheries landings of about 4.1 million tonnes valued €6.3 billion, and aquaculture production of 1.2 million tonnes and €4.5 billion in turnover. Both sectors, fisheries and aquaculture, employ about 130 thousand people and 70 thousand people, and generate €3.4 billion and €1.6 billion of gross value added (GVA) respectively, according to the latest STECF reports.