The European Parliament, on 1 February, adopted a report on the conclusion of a Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the EU and Gabon.
According to MEPs, the financial compensation, fixed at €860,000 per year, should be used for the development of coastal populations dependent on fisheries and for the creation of small local freezing and processing industries. The protocol to the agreement grants fishing possibilities for 24 freezer tuna seiners and 16 surface longliners from Spain, Portugal and France.
In approving the report by Stavros Arnaoutakis, under the consultation procedure, MEPs are asking the European Commission to evaluate each year whether Member States whose vessels operate under this protocol have complied with reporting requirements. According to the rapporteur, vessels that do not comply with the most basic requirement, reporting what they catch, should not benefit from financial support from the EU. In the evaluations for a number of fisheries agreements (eg. Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, São Tomé e Príncipe), a major recurring problem has been the lack of proper reporting of catches.
The reduction in access is about 40% in the number of tuna vessels. The amount of tuna that the fleets are allowed to catch has, however, been increased slightly, from 10,500 tonnes per year to 11,000 tonnes.
In exchange for the right to fish, the EU will pay the Gabonese government a total of €860,000 per year, a decrease compared to the previous protocol (€1,262,500 per year).
In addition to the EU contribution, the ship-owners must pay licence fees, and the Commission calculates that these could amount to a further €142,000 for Gabon. The fee that the ship-owners pay per tonne of tuna declared caught has been increased to €35 from €25 under the previous protocol.
