Morocco-EU fisheries agreement expires with the idea of renewing the protocol for four more years
Morocco and the European Union are today witnessing the end of the fisheries agreement which until now allowed European vessels to fish in Western Saharan waters. This is an important change since, thanks to this agreement, licences were issued to 128 vessels - 93 of them Spanish - that could harvest tuna in Moroccan waters, as well as demersal species in exchange for 52 million euros per year. However, the efforts - especially the Spanish ones - to renew the agreement have not yet borne fruit and the protocol is annulled as of this Monday, leaving important consequences for many fishermen on the peninsula.
"We had consolidated rights that we are now losing," said Tomás Pacheco, a fisherman from Cádiz, in a statement to El Mundo. For those who worked under the agreement, the end of the agreement is a setback, although the European Union had planned some aid to mitigate the economic impact of the end of the fishing agreement. The European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) envisages providing financial compensation to vessel owners and crews in the event that they suffer a temporary cessation of their activity "as a result of the non-renewal of a sustainable fisheries partnership agreement protocol".
Those who can benefit from this aid will be able to do so for a maximum period of six months and during the eligible period, which ends at the end of 2023. However, if in any case the beneficiaries have already received temporary cessation aid since 2014, the time during which they received this compensation will be deducted. It is also important to bear in mind that the decision regarding the aid does not concern the Union, but Spain, which establishes its selection criteria.
As far as the agreement is concerned, it was the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, who stated that "Spain supports the European Union and Morocco concluding a new protocol for the next four years". He also added the objective of "continuing the work, especially in terms of technical research, in order to make progress". The Ministry led by Planas claims that between 21 and 50% of the fishing possibilities for our country have been used up, indicating a certain under-utilisation of an agreement which, after what is expected to be an ephemeral hiatus, will return with more advantageous conditions for Rabat.
In fact, with the end of the protocol on the horizon, on Thursday last week, a joint fisheries delegation of European and Moroccan authorities met in Brussels to evaluate the now expired agreement and study possible ways of renewing it. Nasser Bourita, the Moroccan Foreign Minister, expressed his country's desire to establish a "new vision of partnership" with the Old Continent. He also considers that "it should be specified that the fisheries agreement signed in 2019 does not have an expiry date, but that it is the fisheries protocol that has a duration of four years. Its expiry is therefore scheduled and expected, and not forced".
The possible new agreement represents an opportunity for Morocco to further deepen the fisheries sector, which accounts for just over 2% of the country's GDP. It also generates 220,000 direct jobs, a figure that they also hope will be increased with a memorandum that respects "the shared interest of both parties", as the European Commission has explained. To this end, they say, "close consultations" are being carried out which, in any case, depend on the decision to be taken by the Court of Justice of the Union regarding the appeal filed after the General Court of the EU annulled the agreement in September 2021. Regardless of that decision, the key point is that all parties are clear that the objective is to reach a new protocol and everything points to this being the case, even if it is not achieved immediately.