The European Commission and the Spanish Presidency are organising a major Stakeholder Conference on the Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy in La Coruña, Spain. Representatives from European institutions, national administrations, the fisheries sector, the scientific community and non-governmental organisations will attend and the conference is open to the press.

In April 2009, the Commission launched a Green Paper initiating a public consultation on the future of the CFP. Between April and December 2009, over 1700 opinions were received and they have been now summarized in a Report that can be accessed in the fisheries website of the European Commission.

At this point, a second step of the process consists in reviewing the results and distilling them, with institutions, administrations, stakeholders and experts, into definite suggestions and trends for the future. This is the objective of the conference in La Coruña, which, aside from plenary sessions, will discuss three key pillars of the reform in three simultaneous workshops on governance, access and resource management and the differentiated regime for small-scale and coastal fisheries.

Over 200 people are expected to participate in the conference, which will review the options emerging from the recent public consultation on Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform and shape the basic policy orientations for the future.

The conference results will feed in to the future preparations of the reform. They will be discussed by the Fisheries Ministers at the informal Council in Vigo, Spain, on 4 and 5 May, and again in the June Council meeting. The Commission will present its legislative proposals for a new EU fisheries policy next year.