Conventional analysis of the European Commission in the current economic crisis has focused primarily upon its action towards financial stability and fiscal consolidation. Far less attention has been paid to its industrial policies. The case of aquaculture - the farming of fish and crustaceans in fresh and seawaters - is particularly pertinent to this debate. Global aquaculture continues to grow at an annual rate of 8,8 %. Further, despite economic instability in many markets, intra- and extra- EU trade in aquaculture increases: “People need fish – the seas are empty. Aquaculture grows” (interview Greek producer). However, global growth rates are not matched by EU production, which has instead slowed overall and is in decline for some species. To meet European consumer demands, instead 60-65% seafood products sold in the EU are imported. In these circumstances, one might imagine that a separate European responsibility to facilitate aquaculture’s growth would have been constructed. However, this has not happened. Rather aquaculture remains governed by EU general rules (e.g. environment) and instruments adapted from capture fisheries. Moreover, during recent debates on this very question, the Commission’s own construction of the major obstacles to growth as being predominantly national or regional went largely uncontested by fish farmers. The paper presents findings from an ANR-research project to explain this failure to socially construct aquaculture as a distinct European industry requiring common vertical instruments. I show this neither to be inevitable, nor predetermined by past decisions acting somehow independently of actors. It stems instead from a combination of how firms have constructed conceptions of control of their markets alongside their professional identities and the dominance of liberal economic and social corporate responsibility beliefs held by firms and Commission officials alike operating against EU public intervention. I finish by asking what meaning now for European ‘competitivity’?
