Brussels, 16/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The authors of a report, requested by the European Commission and published on Monday 14 September, claim that negotiating a new fisheries agreement protocol between the EU and Gabon would be appropriate.
Since 1998, several fisheries partnership agreements (FPA) have allowed EU fishing vessels to work in the Gabonese fishing zone. The current partnership agreement has been in force since 2007. Its current Protocol has been enforced since July 2013 and will last three years. It follows a 20-month negotiation period during which EU vessels were not authorised to fish in the area. This report (covering the first two years of implementation of the Protocol) and its ex ante evaluation will enable the Council to authorise the Commission to negotiate a new Protocol on behalf of the EU before the expiry date of the current Protocol.
The report demonstrates that the current Protocol allowed EU purse seiners to catch 92% of the reference tonnage in 2014, which represents 17.7% of the estimated total production by EU vessels in the East Atlantic Ocean. In terms of supplying the EU markets, the contribution of the Protocol is about 3%. No jobs were created in Gabon due to the absence of EU fishing vessels in Gabonese ports. On the other hand, the Protocol helped maintain 200 direct jobs and 470 indirect jobs, distributed amongst the EU and ACP countries over this period. The authors of the report conclude that “the effectiveness of the Protocol is considered relatively high”. For €1 invested by the EU, €10 of total added value are generated and distributed between the EU (40%) and ACP countries (60%). In comparison with the negotiated private licences, the current Protocol is more advantageous for Gabon (with a benefit of about 20% of the total payments).
The Protocol allows EU vessels to access the Gabonese fishing zone with an uptake of 81% of the purse seiners fishing authorisations. According to the report, continuation of the Protocol is pertinent when taking into consideration the importance of this fishing zone for EU vessels, especially French. It is recommended not to include pole-and-line vessels in a future Protocol. Maintaining the reference tonnage at its current level is advisable; although a slight raise could be considered if it was taking into account recent catch levels and future trends. If a new Protocol were to forbid the use of FADs (Fish Concentration Devices) in the Gabonese fishing zone, the purse seine vessel owners would have much less interest in the area. This would result in a drop of 90% of their gross operating surplus, which would fall from €2.2 million to €0.2 million. The report stipulates that an increase in access rights could be envisaged, as well as authorisation costs and the introduction of incentives in Gabon (as is the case in Madagascar) when existing infrastructure allows. (Lionel Changeur)