Fish stocks are in such a situation that the European Commission has set up, under the joint Policy amendment, an emergency plan. This plan advocates a disarmament of one tenth of vessels and stopping aids to fleets modernisation.

It also predicts reinforcing control over illegal fishing and recommends an adequate piloting and a rational management of pluriannual quotas of catches to replace annual ones. Other measures were also set forth. New technical standards to prevent juvenile catching or decisions to protect some endangered species. From this perspective, Mr F. Fischler, responsible of the fishing case to the European Commission, declared: “The future is dark if those proposals are not adopted now”. “If we continue this way, both fishermen and fish will disappear.”