EU-Mauritania FPA, A Vote For Sustainable Fishing, say Fishermen, Civil Society
By Emeka Umejei – The endorsement by an overwhelming majority of European Parliamentarians in favour of the EU- Mauritania Fisheries Protocol Agreement (FPA) is a vote for sustainable fishing, said Sidi Ahmed, President of Confederation of African Artisanal Fishermen Organisations (CAOPA), who is also President of Small Scale and Coastal Fisheries Section of the Mauritanian FPA.
The CAOPA leader emphasised that the decision “directly exercises our national sovereignty over our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).”
“We call on the authorities to enshrine this decision in law by incorporating it into our fisheries code, to establish it as the corner stone of any further agreements.”
Beatrice Gorez, Coordinator of Brussels-based Coalition Fair Fisheries Agreement (CFFA), part of the civil society that championed the EU-Mauritania FPA, says it is the biggest bilateral fisheries agreement in recent times.
Beatrice said the agreement reflects the “main changes and commitments taken by the EU in its reformed Common Fisheries Policy, which is of significance for other future fishing agreements.”
Beatrice said the adoption of the FPA provoked “profound divisions in the ranks of those who, in general, defend EU fishing fleets’ interests: in particular, within the Spanish fishing sector and Spanish authorities.”
Though, Gorez said the protocol is not perfect, she however noted it is an “important step towards establishing fair and sustainable EU-third countries fisheries relations.”
According to Gorez, the most important positive aspects of the protocol is : “The EU-Mauritania FPA protocol is the first ever so called ‘access agreement’ which ensures the ‘non access’ of EU fleets to a resource, which in this case is the livelihood of 35.000 artisanal fishermen in Mauritania: octopus.”
She said the protocol makes it mandatory for more than 30 Spanish trawlers, which were targeting Octopus, and competing with local fishermen to stop.
However, she was quick to caution that the EU octopus fishing fleet, which has been barred from fishing in Mauritanian waters through the protocol, is putting pressure so that such access is reintroduced in the next protocol.
This is buttressed by Gabriel Mato Adrover (EEP,ES) who objected to the agreement: “We now have to prepare for the renewal of this agreement, due to expire at the end of 2014, to ensure that the next protocol improves the current conditions and that Commission negotiators make sure it includes the whole sector.”
Gorez emphasised that though the two year EU-Mauritania FPA protocol was voted on last week, it had been signed in August 2012, approved by Council in December 2012, and provisionnally implemented since. This, she notes implies that the negotiations for the next EU-Mauritania FPA will start in a few months.
The CAOPA leader further lauded Mohammed Ould Aziz, the President of the Mauritania, for what he described as his “historic decision to grant the exclusivity of access to cephalopods (octopus) to the national fishing sector, particularly small-scale and coastal fisheries.”
