آیا مواقفتنامه مشارکت شیلات (FPA)اتحادیه اروپا با کشور موریتانی یک مشارکت واقعی است و یا بهره برداری توسط اتحادیه اروپا است؟

The EU’s fisheries agreements with West African states have long been criticised by NGOs for exporting the EU’s problem of over-exploiting its own fish stocks to African waters. To meet these criticisms, the EU introduced in 2003 a new form of fisheries agreement, the Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA), replacing purely commercial deals with a commitment to sharing decision-making with the African states to sustainably develop their fisheries. However, some critics claim that despite the EU’s good intentions, little has changed: the partnerships are dominated by the EU, and the fish stocks in the African states’ waters are still being over-fished to serve the needs of the EU, not the African states. In this paper, the working of the FPA between the EU and Mauritania is investigated to determine whether a genuine partnership has been established, or whether the FPA is a thinly disguised form of EU exploitation, using the fashionable model of partnership as a cover or mask. The findings are that while the FPA is a significant improvement on the EU’s previous fisheries relationship with Mauritania, it falls short of a genuine partnership, and it needs several reforms if it is to meet not only its own specifications of what constitutes the FPA, but also wider, aspirational notions of the essence of partnership.

The EU imports nearly 60% of its fish consumption because it can no longer meet domestic demand from the fish in its own waters (Gorez, 2006). Moreover, there is a surplus of fishing vessels in many EU Member States because owners are unable to obtain sufficient quota under the strict quota rules imposed by the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Accordingly, the European Commission has negotiated agreements with many developing countries to allow EU fishing vessels access to the fish stocks in their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in return for compensation payments and favourable terms for the developing countries to export their fish to EU Member States (Kaczynski and Fluharty, 2002). These agreements arose after the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) extended national jurisdictions (EEZs) out to 200 miles in 1979 in order to help developing countries protect their coastal resources for their own benefit (Renton, 2008) – a move that overnight placed most (90%) of the marine fisheries in the world within the authority of coastal countries, and excluded fishing vessels registered in EU Member States which had long fished in these waters with relative impunity (Gorez, 2006). The EU fisheries agreements with developing countries before 2003 were criticised for being heavily weighted in favour of the EU. For example, Kaczynski and Fluharty (2002: 75) claimed that the agreements were “designed to maximise access to coastal state fisheries resources, secure employment for European harvesting and processing industries and supply European seafood consumption markets at the lowest possible cost”, and that the agreements caused over-fishing of the developing countries’ fisheries resources. With remarkable candour, the EU’s Directorate General for Fishing (DG Fish) acknowledged the validity of these criticisms (Gorez, 2006), and as part of the 2002 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), attempted to deal with them by introducing a fisheries partnership approach with a strong emphasis on promoting the sustainable development of the fisheries in the West African countries (Witbooi, 2008 and EC, 2011). As the European Commission put it (quoted in Fishing News 7/11/08: 8), “With the reform of the CFP in 2002, the agreements we have with these countries have undergone a transformation. What were once access arrangements with a financial contribution have now become genuine partnerships for the development of sustainable and responsible fisheries. The idea is to help the third countries to put in place their own fisheries policies that can help them meet their aim of economic development while protecting fish resources”. This new partnership policy was rolled out incrementally from 2003, and the EU now has 19 FPAs, six of them with West African states – Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Sao Tome e Principe ( Obaidullah and Osinga, 2010 ) – the most important of which is with Mauritania. There are two forms of FPAs: the first consists of tuna agreements; the second consists of multi-species or ‘mixed’ agreements, including the Mauritanian FPA ( Dziemballa, 2011 and EU Fact Sheet, 1995–2001). However, some critics have complained that the new partnerships are merely cosmetic facelifts. For example, Cullberg and Lövin (2009: 2) remark that “Though the partnership sounds good in theory, and criticism of the agreements has diminished, there are still very strong reasons to question whether these agreements promote sustainable use of marine resources and whether the development aspects of the agreements are satisfactorily met in reality”. But in 2009, the EU robustly defended itself against such criticism, claiming that while the FPAs are not perfect, they can make an important contribution to the country’s fishery sector and to its overall development goals (EC, 2009). In this paper, the EU-Mauritania FPA is examined to determine whether it is a genuine partnership or a cosmetic facelift. Section 2 sets out the theoretical framework that guides the paper – the concept of partnership – and outlines the sources of data used in the research. Section 3 describes the case study of the EU-Mauritanian FPA. Section 4 assesses criticisms of the EU for its handling of its four ‘Strategic Priorities’ for the EU-Mauritania FPA. Section 5 rehearses recommendations that have been made for the FPA’s reform, and the concluding section summarises the findings of the paper.

In the light of this analysis, it seems that while the EU-Mauritanian Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) fulfils some, but by no means all, of its stated objectives, it does not even begin to meet the wider criteria of what many commentators regard as a genuine (or ideal) partnership, because of both procedural defects (such as lack of transparency, stakeholder participation, accountability, and equality in its decision-making) and substantive failures (such as inadequate support for indigenous capacity-building for social capital, democratisation, and human rights in Mauritania). Nevertheless, in our view it is no longer an exploitative commercial contract, but a ‘partnership work in progress’, in that its successive formulations and Protocols are gradually improving the terms in Mauritania’s favour and reducing the disparity in power between the two parties. However, a more serious attempt must be made by the EU to meet the aspirations of the Mauritanian government in developing the country’s fishing industry by investing in schemes to extend and upgrade the processing sector; to improve the infrastructure of the ports to allow the unloading of catches from deep water vessels; and to protect the fisheries stocks. At the same time, measures must be taken to improve the governance performance of the FPA. Until and unless such moves are made by the European Commission, indicating its commitment to foster the vision of development held by its partner rather than to serve its own needs, it will risk rejection of the FPA by the Mauritanian government.