On 30 May 2023, MEPs Caroline Roose (Greens/EFA) and Catherine Chabaud (Renew) organised a meeting at the European Parliament to hear about fishing agreements challenges, directly from African artisanal fishing communities from countries that have signed a Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPAs) with the EU.
The speakers were from Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mauritius, Senegal, The Gambia, and the Seychelles. This event, that highlighted the demands of African coastal communities to the EU, crowned ten days of training and discussions in Stockholm and Brussels about the impact of EU-Africa fisheries relations on African coastal communities, including the external dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the EU international partnerships projects linked to coasts and fisheries. This initiative organized by CFFA aimed, through dialogue with stakeholders and the European institutions, to identify the changes needed in these EU policies to ensure that they become effective instruments of an EU-African partnership for the development of environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable fisheries in Africa.
Even though fishers addressed specific topics, the common theme of the discussions remained the “Call to Action from small-scale fisheries”, a list of 5 key priorities for governments and international organisations, to be implemented by 2030, to ensure that small-scale fisheries have secured access to resources and markets. This Call to Action was published one year ago by small-scale fisheries organisations of 5 continents at the occasion of the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022).
During their visit in Sweden from 22 to 25 May, the African small-scale fisheries representatives met with the members of the EU Long Distance Advisory Council and discussed the impact of climate change on the external dimension of the CFP. In Brussels, apart from the event at the European Parliament, fishers also met with the Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) unit in charge of Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements and with the Sustainable Agrifood-Systems and Fisheries Unit at the Directorate General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), the former Development and Cooperation DG. They were also invited to informally exchange with WWF, Our Fish Campaign, and other environmental NGOs, and stressed the importance of being heard in conservation decisions, as primary and the biggest group of ocean users.
More information
Watch the video recording of the event at the European Parliament: “Challenges in fishing agreements: the demands of African coastal communities”
Download the report of the event with the transcriptions of the interventions
Read the call to action from small-scale fisheries from 5 continents
Banner photo: The full delegation of African small-scale fishers at the event in the European Parliament. From left to right: Dorcas Malogho (Kenya), Nancy Onginjo (Seychelles), Raissa Madou (Côte d’Ivoire), Harouna Lebaye (Mauritania), Antónia Djaló (Guinée Bissau), MEP Catherine Chabaud, MEP Caroline Roose, Gaoussou Gueye (Senegal), Ahmed Gamal (Madagascar), Lalaina Rakotoinavo from WWF Madagascar, Judex Rampaul (Mauritius), by Joëlle Philippe.
The Joint Committee of the EU-Mauritania SFPA will meet in Nouakchott from 4 to 6 December 2024. In this article, the author makes a number of recommendations in the light of the conclusions of the Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF). In its latest report, CECAF described the catastrophic situation of shared stocks of small pelagics and recommended a substantial and immediate reduction in fishing effort of 60% for flat and round sardinella.