Some 500 EU fishing vessels (20% of the EU fleet) operate in the waters of developing states under EU Fishing Agreements. These vessels target a variety of species, including shrimp, tuna, and cephalopods (including squid and octopus), and employ an array of fishing gears. Three of these gears are associated with high levels of bycatch:

• Trawling


• Longlining


• Purse seines

Whilst domestically the EU has attempted to minimize the destructive environmental effects of commercial fishing by setting out strictly defined criteria governing fishing gear, bycatch limits, and regulations obliging fishers to use bycatch reduction devices (for example, certain cod fisheries in the Baltic Sea), EU Fishing Agreement regulations, by comparison, are both inadequate and much less rigorous, thereby allowing considerable opportunity for fleets to fish unselectively (i.e. with higher bycatch levels).

Bycatch limits are only specified in a minority of EU Fishing Agreements with developing counties, and when they are included there often are no penalties for exceeding these limits. More specifically, there are no references to the capture of vulnerable marine species by EU vessels in all but two agreements, despite the fact that longlining, purse seining and trawling are associated with the bycatch of sharks, sea turtles, marine mammals and seabirds.

In some cases where bycatch limits are specified, EU vessels are permitted to land far more bycatch than the equivalent domestic vessels. For example, under the EU's fishing agreement with the Republic of Guinea EU trawlers are allowed to catch almost five times more bycatch than a Guinean national trawler.

High bycatch levels have serious implications for sustainable exploitation of fish stocks, particularly in places like the Gulf of Guinea, where bycatch can contain a high level of juveniles. This can cause commercially and locally important fish stocks to collapse, endangering the food security of local people and incurring serious economic costs on developing countries: a 1995 study showed that in the mid-1990s, the value of discards incurred by the EU fleet in Senegalese waters was equal to around 18% of the financial compensation received.

Considering the numerous prior commitments the EU has made to ensuring the sustainable development of fisheries in developing states, there can be few excuses for failing to address the issue of selectivity in the EU's distant water fleet.

It is EJF's position that all EU vessels should be subject to a similar set of legally-binding bycatch provisions, as there can be little justification for the EU to accept different bycatch standards for fisheries in the North Sea, for example, than for European vessels fishing off Senegal, or on the high seas.

The EU currently has fishing agreements with 17 developing countries (Cape Verde, the Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kiribati, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mauritius, the Federated States of Micronesia, Morocco (starting in 2006), Mozambique, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, the Seychelles and the Solomon Islands) which are intended to give the EU rights to the "surplus" marine resources of these countries in return for financial compensation (ranging from around €400,000 to €86,000,000 per country per year). Over the past five years the annual compensation payments made through fisheries agreements have averaged €150 million.

These arrangements benefit the EU by helping to fulfil domestic demand for seafood, as many EU stocks are over-exploited and 60% of fish must be imported. They are also responsible for maintaining 35,000 jobs, mainly in processing. One study has estimated that EU fishing agreements generate value added of €694 million in member states through the processing and marketing of fish caught in developing country waters. This essentially means that for every euro of EU public spending, a turnover of roughly €3 is created. Most of the benefits of EU agreements with African and Pacific states accrue to Spanish operators, which obtain over 80% of the added value and jobs. France and Portugal benefit from around 7%.

Whilst fishing agreements are clearly hugely beneficial to the fishing industry of certain EU member states, there are serious concerns regarding their sustainability. Almost 70% of African fisheries between Morocco and the Congo - a region where the EU has seven such agreements to fish - are fully developed or in decline. As developing countries rely on Fishing Agreements as a source of much-needed foreign currency, at times access has been given to fish stocks that are already fully exploited or overexploited. Fishing practices under the agreements are also often environmentally damaging, with inadequate regulations governing fishing gear selectivity. In many of the agreements, no catch limits are specified, meaning that the catches and impacts of the EU fleet are underestimated. Furthermore, fishing access is subsidised, so EU fleets can often out-compete domestic fisheries. As a consequence of these agreements, developing countries are losing their natural capital and jeopardising future opportunities to make the most of their fisheries. Indeed, the United Nations Environment Programme has warned that by opening their waters to foreign fishing fleets, these countries may lose billions of dollars more than they gain due to environmental over-exploitation.

Further background information and analysis regarding EU Fishing Agreements and their impact on developing states can be found on the following websites:

http://www.cape-cffa.org

http://agritrade.cta.int/fisheries/agreements