EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement

The EU-Moroccan Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) is a fisheries agreement between the European Community (EC) and Morocco that allows European fishing vessels to fish off the shores of Morocco. The FPA allows community vessels from 11 Member States to fish in Moroccan waters and can be considered as one of the major fisheries agreement for the EC. It was signed on 28 July 2005, concluded on 22 May 2006 and entered into force on 28 February 2007. The agreement is set to expire on 27 February 2011.

The agreement provides for the granting of 119 fishing licenses for Community vessels (mostly Spanish, but also from other EU countries) and for a total of 6000 tonnes of pelagic fish for industrial fishing by vessels from France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. In exchange, the EU is to pay Morocco a financial contribution of 144 million €, plus around 13.6 million € to be paid as fees by the shipowners.

The agreement is less ambitious than its predecessors, both in terms of financial contribution and of number of licenses and of pelagic species included. In particular, it excludes the fishing of valuable cephalopods and crustaceans, reflecting the concern of Morocco for the depletion of its fishing stocks, and its efforts to develop its own industrial fishing fleet (by 2006, Morocco was already the top fish exporter in Africa).

The geographic scope of application of the FPA is controversial; its extension to Western Saharan waters is considered by many to entail a violation of international law. Morocco has occupied the larger part of Western Sahara since 1975, and controls the waters offshore the territory. Since Moroccan stocks are largely depleted, the bulk of the fisheries nowadays takes place offshore Western Sahara.

Large-scale fishing from mainland Spain in Moroccan waters began in the 1960s, with the expansion of the Spanish fishing industry, especially from Galicia. The 1975 Tripartite Agreement between Spain, Morocco and Mauritania (Madrid Agreement) included a commitment by Morocco not to impair the access of Spanish fishermen to the waters of Western Sahara. A first fisheries treaty signed in 1977 between Morocco and Spain never entered into force; a second was signed in 1983 and foresaw two different areas of application, north and south of Cape Noun, thus designating the latter as Western Saharan waters, in order not to imply a recognition of Moroccan sovereignty.

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