Undercurrent News
Matilde Mereghetti
Over 100 European vessels are due to return to fish in Moroccan waters after the North African country and the EU will sign a fisheries agreement reached earlier this week.
“However, it is hard to predict when this will happen. As a result, EU vessels might lose precious months for fishing,” CePesca, a Spanish fishing industry association, told Undercurrent News.
“Both EU and Morocco must first complete their internal procedures in order to sign the agreement and its protocol,” an EU official told Undercurrent.
“For the European Union, this means that, following consultations with the populations concerned by the agreement and the protocol, the [EU] Council must first adopt the signature decision and then send the text to the European Parliament, which will have to give its consent by the report prepared in committee and then adopted in plenary,” the official added.
Only after the consent of the European Parliament and the ratification of the agreement by the European member states, the council may adopt the final decision to conclude the agreement, the official said, pointing out it was “hard to predict” when this would happen. The partnership concerns 128 EU vessels, the EU also confirmed.
“It is important to minimize the transition phase and to allow, among other things, the return of EU vessels to the fishing area as soon as the next protocol enters into force,” the EU also said.
The fisheries partnership was agreed between the two parties on July 20, a week after EU vessels were forced to leave Moroccan waters as the previous agreement was not renewed in time.
Key features of the agreement
The negotiations between the two parties had started on April 19.
Morocco had initially asked the EU to receive a financial contribution that is twice the amount of what it received under the expired protocol: an annual €80 million instead of €40m, according to the Western Sahara Resource Watch.
The EU said the “two parties have reached a definitive compromise” on the “financial compensation that the Union will pay in exchange for them, as well as the funds earmarked for sectoral support for the development of a sustainable fishery”.
The EU financial contribution to Morocco will increase from €37m to €42.4m, plus the royalties paid by the shipowners estimated over a progressive range from €11.1m-12.7m, the EU said.
In exchange, fishing opportunities in terms of allocated catches will increase from 85,000 metric tons to 100,000t per year of small pelagic species.
Contact the author matilde.mereghetti@undercurrentnews.com
