The integration of ecosystem-based management in EU fisheries governance: challenges and opportunities

The European Union’s marine governance framework is complex and constantly evolving. It aims to strike a balance between economic, social, and environmental objectives, but challenges remain in achieving full sustainability for all fish stocks. The aim of this study is to identify the impact of global governance factors and fisheries activities between 1996 and 2022. This paper attempts to capture the impact of global governance determinants on sustainable development management in the European Union region. The analysis revealed that the dependent variable, that is, sustainable management of fisheries production, had a positive relationship with political stability, economic growth, and government effectiveness, using a technique referred to as Moments Quantile Regression, which is used together with the fixed effect estimator. In addition to that, the influence of the Rule of Law and Regulatory Quality variables on fisheries management sustainability was positive and significant for the most recent quantile across the country for the European Union region. At the same time, there are positive and significant relationships between the sustainable management of fisheries and the independent variable, voice and accountability, and control of corruption at the middle quantiles in the European Union region. In particular, the results confirm the Keynesian Theory by showing that the European Union developing countries have much higher positive impacts on production than the European Union developed members from most global governance factors. On the other hand, the European Union developed members outperform the European Union developing members in terms of Voice and Accountability.