In answer to the Commission’s consultation on the effectiveness of the Common Fisheries Policy, the author makes 4 recommendations to make the external dimension of the CFP more effective. For it, the EU should shift from access agreements to fisheries governance agreements, while continuing to support informed participation of stakeholders in third countries. The EU should also ensure that all vessels of EU origin, including those reflagged, abide by sustainability standards. Finally, the EU should actively engage, at international level, to promote transparent, fair, and sustainable access arrangements applicable to all fleets of foreign origin fishing in developing countries.
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The European Commission has launched a consultation assessing the effectiveness of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). This is the first part of a thorough evaluation which will look at whether and how the CFP has achieved its objectives.
Under the CFP, the EU has the exclusive power to manage the conservation of marine biological resources. This applies both to EU waters, and outside EU waters. The last major CFP reform in 2013 resulted in the inclusion, for the first time, a dedicated chapter on the external policy, covering both SFPAs and participation in RFMOs. This was a significant milestone as it endorsed principles of sustainable and responsible fisheries in distant water fisheries, going beyond the previous objectives of maintaining the presence of the EU DWF in external waters and contributing to European Union market supply.
In its contribution, CFFA has made 4 recommendations to make the external dimension of the CFP more effective: the EU should shift from access agreements to fisheries governance agreements (1), while continuing to support informed participation of stakeholders in third countries (2); it should ensure all vessels of EU origin, including those reflagged, abide by sustainability standards (3); and it should actively engage, at international level, to promote transparent, fair, and sustainable access arrangements applicable to all fleets of foreign origin fishing in developing countries (4).
Implementing sustainability in the external dimension has been challenging
The current CFP external dimension has several key objectives, including the development of scientific knowledge, policy coherence, the promotion of sustainable fishing, and ensuring that EU fishing activities outside its waters are based on the same sustainability principles and standards as those applicable for fishing operations in its waters, while promoting a level playing field for its operators, vis-à-vis third country operators.
In 2017, a further Regulation on Sustainable management of external fishing fleets entered into force. Its objective is for catches by EU vessels outside EU waters (10% of total EU vessels’ catches) to follow the same rules and sustainability standards as catches inside EU waters, even when vessels operate outside the framework of fisheries agreements and outside the scope of RFMOs.
Implementing these objectives in SFPAs has been challenging, as was shown in the 2023 horizontal SFPA evaluation. As CFFA contends, in order to make SFPAs more efficient and effective, changes are needed, particularly in terms of good governance, third countries’ stakeholders effective and informed participation, and benefits for local populations, particularly coastal fishing communities.
“For EU fisheries agreements with third countries to be more efficient, they need to be improved in terms of governance, of effective and informed participation of stakeholders and benefit local populations.””
The EU also needs to look beyond the activities of EU flagged vessels, those that are currently covered by the CFP. In the last 15 years, the EU distant water fishing fleet has been almost divided by three, from around 700 vessels reported in 2007 to 242 vessels nowadays. The vessels that have left the EU fleet register have not all been scrapped. Many of them have reflagged to third countries, including to African countries. However, the ownership of these vessels is often still in the hands of European citizens and it is European citizens that benefit from their operations. The EU needs to ensure that this reflagged fleet, whose beneficiaries are EU citizens, abides by similar sustainability and transparency standards as those specified in the CFP. This is a major challenge to be addressed by the CFP in the future.
Finally, if sustainability has to be achieved, to the benefit of local populations in third countries, it is not only the EU that needs to act. Guidelines, applicable to all distant water fleets, identifying best practices for sustainable, fair and transparent access arrangements should be promoted at regional, like in Africa, and international levels. The EU should play an active part to promote this, including by supporting the current work undertaken by the FAO on access arrangements.
Recommendation 1: A shift from fisheries access agreements to fisheries governance agreements
Achieving sustainable fisheries management objectives as stated in SFPAs, requires the partner coastal countries to be able to address important challenges in terms of fisheries management. The coastal countries also expect to derive, from fisheries exploitation under access arrangements, clearly identified and visible benefits for the local populations, in particular coastal communities.
The costs of sustainably managing and exploiting their fisheries, as proclaimed in SFPAs joint objectives, are high for partner countries. For example, Small Islands Developing countries (SIDs) have a huge Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to manage and police. Or, countries with shared resources, like small pelagics, require regional cooperation and intervention. In other countries, (co)managing and enforcing zones to protect vulnerable marine eco-systems, and the operations of local artisanal fleets that depend on them, is also costly.
Furthermore, to maximise the benefits for the local populations, investments in infrastructure development, particularly for the small-scale sector, also need to be considered. For example, building or improving fishing ports and landing sites, cold storage facilities, transportation networks, access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), access to electricity (solar power) for coastal communities, or access to credit for fishers and women fishmongers and fish processors.
Funds available should better match the needs of coastal countries for developing their fisheries sustainably. For this, we think that 100% of SFPAs public funding should support, on the long term, the creation of an enabling framework for fisheries (co)management (including conservation measures, research, MCS) and reinforce stakeholder’s informed participation. In that case, operators should pay 100% of their access costs.
However, the support needed for partner countries to address these challenges goes far beyond monies available through SFPAs. In the future, it will be necessary to streamline EU actions – SFPAs and development cooperation particularly – for implementing, through budgetary support, priorities that have been identified jointly, in a transparent and participative way.
“Delinking fisheries agreements financial compensation from the fishing possibilities would allow the EU to better engage in support of sustainable management of all species, including those that are not targetted by the EU fleets.””
The 2023 SFPA evaluation recommended “establishing an EU formal internal mechanism for coordination, and alignment of methods for implementation of budget support”. If the EU wants more efficiency its interventions in African fisheries and a better coherence between SFPAs and development cooperation, this recommendation should be implemented as a priority.
Using 100% of SFPA monies to establish a framework for good governance and sustainable fisheries, and intensifying the linkages with development cooperation, would further de-link the SFPAs financial compensation from the level of fishing possibilities. This delinking would also allow the EU to engage in support of the sustainable management of species that its fleets do not target, like the shared stocks of small pelagics in West Africa.
Such a framework should help establish -in a participative, gender sensitive and transparent manner- technical and financial conditions that would apply, across the board and in a non-discriminatory way, to all vessels of foreign origin, including EU vessels.
The EU should also continue to develop and implement comprehensive regional strategies for sustainable fisheries, as proposed in the last CFP reform. The objective should be to seek more coherence, at regional level, between different EU policies, such as aid, trade, and fisheries. Such regional, sea basin, strategies should be established in a way that developing countries stakeholders are able to highlight their concerns and expectations. SFPAs have a key role to play for promoting dialogue on this topic between the EU and partner countries stakeholders, like in the case of regional management of small pelagics in West Africa.
Recommendation 2: The EU should continue to support stakeholders’ informed participation in partner countries
In partner countries, there is very limited knowledge and information available about marine ecosystems, the state of fishing resources or the difficulties of men and women in small-scale fisheries in accessing these resources. Despite this lack of information, distant water fishing nations and coastal countries have negotiated access arrangements without much precaution, leading in some cases to legal over fishing, destruction of fragile coastal ecosystems, competition with local artisanal fishing, generating losses of equipment and collisions at sea.
This lack of access to information is also an important challenge to citizens’ informed participation. Improving coastal countries knowledge, and public information, about the state of their fisheries resources and marine ecosystems is essential for negotiating sustainable and fair access arrangements.
The EU should continue to contribute to the production of knowledge and information through various research initiatives at national or regional level. Such research should not be only about the fish resources targeted by EU vessels, but continue to be as well on resources that are of key importance for local populations, like the small pelagics in West Africa.
As artisanal fisheries are usually neglected in official statistics, and particularly the work of women, the EU should support the collection of gender sensitive data, the collection and dissemination of information about the artisanal fishing sector. This will make the contribution of local small-scale fisheries to food security, livelihoods, sustainable use of the ocean more visible.
“The views of African fishers have been increasingly included in fisheries agreement (SFPAs) evaluations. With a few enhancements, these evaluations could provide a valuable contribution to the information of the public in partner third countries, and support local communities’ active participation to SFPAs negotiation and implementation.””
Quality information improves stakeholder involvement and cooperation. In this regard, positive dialogue has been established between EU fisheries stakeholders and European Commission through the Long Distance Advisory Committee. The LDAC has established a sustained dialogue (through an MoU) with an African regional organisation: the Ministerial Conference on Fisheries Cooperation between African States bordering the Atlantic Ocean (COMHAFAT), and an African stakeholder platform, Afrifish-net, the pan-African platform of African fisheries non state actors. These partnerships have proven valuable to channel African fisheries stakeholder’s views on access arrangements to European institutions. In view of these positive results, the EU should continue the support, including by promoting the funding, through the EU project FISHGOV 2, of Afrifish-net’s work with its members.
The EU has also made efforts to include the views of African fisheries stakeholders, artisanal fishing organisations in particular, into the SFPAs evaluations. These SFPAs evaluations have been made public since 2015 and discuss crucial concerns, such as catch data, fisheries impacts on ecosystems, the effectiveness of EU funds spent under sectoral support, etc. They have become an important source of public information in the EU and in partner countries when it comes to SFPAs negotiations’ stakes, and implementation issues. However, the content of these evaluations, and the way they are used, should better reflect their importance for informed public participation in partner countries. The LDAC has made recommendations to that effect, which should be implemented, including: looking at SFPAs impacts on women in fisheries; documenting impacts of the various EU policies (fleets access, trade, aid, etc) that affect fisheries in the third countries concerned, to evaluate whether and how policy coherence for development is achieved.
Nonetheless, the EU can already do more in support of informed participation. For example, the minutes of Joint committees and joint scientific committees that oversee the implementation of the protocol help understand how sustainability concerns and concerns of local stakeholders are addressed or not during the SFPA protocol. These minutes, as well as the reports regarding the use of sectoral support, should systematically be made public. Additionally, the recommendations made by the committees, and whether and how they have been dealt with, should be examined in SFPAs evaluations.
Coupled with other actions, relatively easy to implement by partner countries, like the regular publication of licensed vessels, these enhanced SFPAs evaluations could provide a valuable contribution to the information of the public in partner third countries, and support local communities’ active participation to SFPAs negotiation and implementation.
Recommendation 3: Reflagged vessels of EU origin should abide by the highest sustainability standards
Many African countries are of the opinion that maximizing the profits from their fisheries can be gained by reflagging or chartering vessels of foreign origin, as this increases interactions with local economic operators, through landing, processing, exporting fish. These strategies have not always led to the expected results – in many cases, the constitution of joint fishing ventures has been “in name only”, with the control of the vessel of foreign origin, its operations, its benefits, remaining firmly in foreign (Chinese, Russian, European, etc.) hands. Schemes such as joint ventures or chartering of vessels of foreign origin has also led to resources overexploitation, competition with the local artisanal sector and damages to the environment, particularly through incursions in the zone reserved for artisanal fishers.
Some reflagged vessels linked to EU companies have entered into such unsustainable and illegal operations, like in Cameroon or Senegal. These vessels with established links to European companies or nationals are most often let off the hook and EU beneficiaries are not sanctioned.
“The EU should promote a regulatory framework that ensures joint fishing ventures operate transparently, do not compete with local fisheries and contributes to sustainable development.””
In the SFPAs, the European Union promotes the constitution of joint ventures, without giving further details. But how could SFPA partner countries believe that the EU is honestly committed to establishing joint ventures that operate sustainably when it closes its eyes on unsustainable fishing perpetrated by vessels linked to EU companies or nationals?
The EU should promote, with its SFPA partners and internationally, a regulatory framework applicable to all vessels of foreign origin, as well as to all joint ventures in the fish processing, and marketing sectors. This framework should ensure that these foreign owned companies operate transparently, do not lead to the destruction of eco-systems, do not compete with artisanal fisheries, and provide tangible and sustainable benefits to the country concerned.
There has been positive progress lately: in 2022, a commitment was made by the Organisation of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) to take steps, as a flag State or coastal State, to update and implement national legislation requiring the declaration of the beneficial owners of fishing vessels when granting the flag or an authorisation to fish. The OACPS has also recommended that a register of beneficial owners of fishing vessels be kept at national level. In this case, the ACP countries are setting an example that all, including the EU, should follow. A first step should be to establish, like Spain has done in the past, a register of fishing joint ventures beneficial owners.
Recommendation 4: The EU should actively engage to promote transparent, fair, sustainable access arrangements for all distant water fleets
In SFPA partner countries, there is a lack of capacity and political will to apply to other fleets of foreign origin some of the conditions which are required for the EU fleets under the SFPA. These conditions include restrictions on access, fishing zones and are important to protect artisanal fishing activities and the marine ecosystems they depend on for their livelihoods.
“Conditions to ensure sustainability should apply across the board to all industrial fleets fishing in Africa - most of which are foreign-owned. Positive dialogue has started at COFI level and should be continued by FAO and supported by the EU and its partners””
For distant water fishing to be sustainable, it is of paramount importance that such measures are applied across the board to all industrial fleets, most of which are foreign owned. This calls for steps to be taken at international level on fisheries access arrangements. Already, the UNGA resolution has been requesting for some years that access arrangements should be transparent, sustainable, and fair, calling to take due consideration in developing coastal States’ legitimate expectation to fully benefit from the sustainable use of the natural resources of their exclusive economic zones.
Since 2017, FAO has endeavoured to document access arrangements, looking in particular as how to improve benefits for developing countries. The last FAO Committee on fisheries (COFI) in July 2024 requested the COFI Sub-Committee on Fisheries Management to address access arrangements concerns, and the issue of distant water fishing vessels that are not subject to sufficient management and control, potentially having negative impacts on SSF, especially in developing countries. This offers an opportunity for the EU and its SFPA partners to open up a dialogue at international level with other distant water fishing fishers.
Banner photo: The Fass Boye artisanal fisheries landing site, in Senegal, by Agence Mediaprod.
Although the protocol does not allow European fleets to fish for small pelagics because they are overexploited, at least 4 European vessels have reportedly reflagged to Guinea-Bissau and are fishing for these species in the region, jeopardising the region's food security and competing with small-scale fisheries.