Adaptive Management of EU Marine Ecosystems - About Time to Include Fishery

The article formulates two research questions. The first is how cur-rent knowledge on fish fauna and fishing activities are included in the Marine Strategy Directive (WFD) and the Water Framework Directive (WFD) adaptive planning. The MSD is relatively detailed in specifying such information but provides for considerable dis-cretion for member states as regards what to include in marine strategies. This has specific implications for coastal water as the WFD does not require fish species to be considered as a biological quality element in coastal waters. None of the directives requires member states to address fishing activities in the programmes of measures and this is in some situations not even possible. The sec-ond research question is how the MSD and WFD adaptive plan-ning impacts decisions according to the Common Fishery Policy regulation (CFP regulation), when deciding upon conservation measures. Despite a documented clear political ambition to inte-grate the MSD and WFD with the CFP regulation, integration has not effectively been realised in the legal instruments. A proposal 2013 for a new CFP regulation entails no change in this respect. Ecological sustainability in marine waters is not a legal precondition for economic and social sustainability of fishery