Fisheries management has to deal with uncertainty about the genetic composition and the location of fish stocks. If institutions are inert, i.e. unable to adapt to new insights, management may not be effective. This paper analyses fisheries management in Europe which relies on scientific advice feeding into the management decision process. The spatial boundaries of fish stocks define the scientific areas and management areas, which are not necessarily aligned. Even if new scientific information on the stock composition and location leads to changes in scientific areas, the management areas are usually not adjusted. This causes an institutional mismatch which violates the self-imposed good governance principles of the EU. We use the North Sea and the Western horse mackerel stocks to gain some insights in the process of renegotiating new management areas and national fisheries quotas. We find that distributional concerns around allocating quota are a key obstacle for an adjustment of management areas. We suggest to pre-define a transparent mechanism to facilitate adapting management areas to scientific areas.

渔业管理必须处理有关遗传组成和鱼类种群位置的不确定性。如果机构是惰性的，即无法适应新的见解，则管理可能无效。本文分析了欧洲的渔业管理，它依赖于科学建议，将其纳入管理决策过程。鱼类种群的空间边界界定了科学领域和管理领域，它们不一定是一致的。即使有关库存组成和位置的新科学信息导致科学领域发生变化，通常也不会调整管理区域。这会导致体制上的不匹配，这违反了欧盟自我施加的善治原则。在重新谈判新的管理区域和国家渔业配额的过程中，我们使用北海和西方鲭鱼种群获得一些见识。我们发现围绕配额分配的分配问题是调整管理区域的主要障碍。我们建议预先定义一个透明的机制，以促进使管理领域适应科学领域。