The Contested Commons: The Failure of EU Fisheries Policy and Governance in the Mediterranean and the Crisis Enveloping the Small-Scale Fisheries of Malta

This paper highlights how multi-scalar interstitial policy failings of the EU fisheries

policy can directly trigger policy gaps in fisheries management at the expense of

artisanal communities, leading to further expansion opportunities for industrial fishing

and triggering instability and marginalization of traditional fishing communities. In order

to contextualize and demonstrate this complexity, we explore a detailed scenario of the

Maltese waters to show how the development of a national policy portfolio post-EU

accession has destabilized long-existing functional fishing governance mechanisms

and now pose a direct challenge to the sustainable management of the marine

socio-ecological system. Using a mixed-method approach to investigate the partially

obscured social, economic and political dynamics which drive marine policy, we

demonstrate how the coastal fisheries have become subject to multiple-use competition

arising primarily from a burgeoning recreational fishing sector that has benefited from

“access-enabling policies,” and is, to a great extent uninhibited by fish conservation

regulations. Our findings demonstrate how a deeper understanding of the sociopolitical

ramifications of policy processes is necessary to improve the governance and

management of contested and congested open-access fisheries.