Fisheries management should be decentralised away from Brussels, Scotland's Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead said today. Regional and local management of fisheries would give the flexibility needed to successfully reform the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and offer better protection for fish stocks.

This approach would mean decisions would be taken according to a particular fishery – not the current one size fits all approach, which fails to take account of key differences in fisheries.

Speaking immediately after key talks on regionalisation at the EU Fisheries Council in Luxembourg, Mr Lochhead said: "It has been refreshing to hear Member States – and indeed the European Commission – agreeing that the CFP needs reformed and that decisions must be decentralised after three decades of micro-management by Brussels, with often disastrous consequences for Scotland.

"The big question now, and what will be negotiated in the coming months, is what any new regime will look like and how much decision-making can be vested in national governments working together, on a regional basis where appropriate.

"Scotland's position is clear - we must deliver real decision making at local and regional level with the role of Brussels kept to an absolute minimum.

"Managing fisheries locally makes sound sense. It allows fishery specific decisions to be made and stops the madness of a one-size-fits-all approach. No two fisheries are the same so the current approach simply does not work.

"It's vital that the desperately needed reform of the CFP gives Member States the maximum possible flexibility to take these decisions at a local level."

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