New Partnership Agreements
The EU’s former ‘fish, pay and go’ policy for bilateral fishing agreements with ACP countries is no more. It has been replaced by Fishing Partnership Agreements (FPA) focused on sustainable development.
Port of Kalaban Koro, near Bamako, Mali.
© Anne-Sophie Costenoble. Courtesy of the photographer. Contact: costi@skynet.be
The introduction of these FPAs is for both commercial and ecological reasons. The new generation of agreements addresses the ongoing over-exploitation of resources. According to the European Commission, new World Trade Organisation (WTO) regulations on aid to the fishing industry do not mean that the, “EU’s financial contribution should be considered as a subsidy for European fishermen.” It goes on to say that “…. in future, the EU’s financial contribution will have to be regarded as an investment to ensure responsible fishing and therefore be based on new considerations”. This transformation of fishing agreements into Fishing Partnership Agreements is a recent development – most of the FPAs have only been in place for a year.
But some things haven’t changed. The main aim of the FPAs, as with the former previous bilateral agreements, is to provide European fleets with access to the territorial waters of certain coastal states. In the 1970s most coastal states established exclusive economic zones, extending their jurisdiction at sea from a distance of between 3 and 12 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles. This move put almost 90 per cent of the world’s fish stocks under the control of these coastal states. As a result, the fishing fleets of the EU Member States, which traditionally operated in the waters of third countries, suddenly found themselves excluded from these areas. To solve this issue, the EU signed fishing agreements with the third countries involved to ensure access for its fleets. In addition, ever since Spain and Portugal joined the EU in 1986, their national bilateral agreements have gradually been replaced by the EU agreements. However, national bilateral agreements are still in place where the EU does not have fishing agreements, for example with South Africa.
Ensuring access
According to the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), the EU’s policy on fishing in third countries – aimed at protecting the EU’s interests in the fishing sector – has been the driving force in ACP-EU relations in the fishing industry. The EU concluded 14 fishing agreements with ACP countries in July 2007 involving the payment of financial compensation. In return, the EU fleets obtained access to resources that, in theory, are not used by the coastal state concerned and are often referred to as ‘surplus resources’.
Primarily Spanish interests
A study carried out in 2005 by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) gave the main reasons for the EU signing fishing agreements as:
- to supply the EU’s fish processing industry with raw materials. This took into account the huge demand on the EU market and the poor supply in EU waters mainly caused by overfishing. Currently, the EU has to import about 60 per cent of the fish it consumes and since 2000 has had to import an additional 9 million tonnes of fish annually to meet the demand of the fish processing industry and EU consumers. The added value created by the ACP-EU agreements through the processing and sale of fish in the Member States is estimated at €694 million.
- to maintain fishing capacity outside EU waters. In the 1990s, the ACP-EU fishing agreements authorised 800 EU vessels to fish in the waters of developing countries. This fishing, created through the ACP-EU agreements, has increased over the years for technological reasons.
- to protect employment in the EU. Some 35,000 jobs depend on the ACP-EU fishing agreements, mainly in the EU’s fish processing industry.
The Spanish are the main beneficiaries of the agreements between the ACP countries and the EU, with more than 80 per cent of the added value and the employment. Additionally, France and Portugal receive about 7 per cent. In 2006, the total budget of the fishing agreements was €240M and expenditure in 2006 on the main ACP-EU fishing agreements was:
- €86M for the EU-Mauritania agreement;
- €7.2M for the EU-Guinea-Bissau agreement;
- €4.12M for the EU-Seychelles agreement;
- €3.9M for the EU-Guinea agreement.
Fish stocks in the waters of the ACP coastal states of interest to the EU fleets can be divided into three main categories:
- Demersal species: mainly octopus, sole, prawns, snapper, hake;
- Small pelagic species: sardinellas, horse mackerel/scads, sardines, pilchards;
- All tuna species.
The FPAs: root of all evil?
Some observers believe that the new Fishing Partnership Agreements the EU is currently negotiating with ACP coastal countries (to replace bilateral agreements) will be the “root of all evil” and will only further encourage illegal fishing. The CTA disagrees, highlighting the example of Spanish trawlers fishing in South African waters with the approval of the South African Marine and Coastal Management (MCM), who get around the reduction in the quantities of hake fished (required by current quotas) by processing the hake into sausage. The CTA points out that, “in the case of South Africa, the absence of a fishing agreement has not prevented some European ship owners from accessing South African fishing waters”. They conclude that, “Private agreements often result in situations that are neither beneficial to the local populations in the ACP nor to levels of fish stocks.”
