The EU fleet economic database : short-term forecasts and quota impact

The Annual Economic Report on the EU Fishing Fleet (AER) provides a comprehensive overview of the latest information available on the structure and economic performance of EU Member States fishing fleets, being the reference used for policy support. The socio-economic data collected and submitted by Member States under the EU Data Collection Framework (DCF) comes with at least a two year time lag. Yet, up-to-date and reliable information on the economic performance of European fishing fleets is essential for policy makers and fisheries managers to make sound decisions. Currently, the Bio-Economic Model of European Fleets (BEMEF) is used to forecast the short-term economic performance of Member State fishing fleets operating in the Northeast Atlantic. Due to underlying model assumptions based on annual (or multi-annual) Total Allowable Catches (TACs), BEMEF is only able to provide estimates for Member State fleets operating predominately in FAO fishing area 27, where most fisheries are managed under a TAC and quota system. To address the imitations of BEMEF and complement results in the AER with short-term performance projections for Member State fleets fishing outside area 27, we further explored the JRC/DCF economic database projection model and developed an alternative simplified methodology that allows projecting data for all countries, including Member State fleets operating exclusively in the Mediterranean & Black seas, as well as MS fleets operating in distant-waters. Both methodologies are compared and future recommendations are provided.