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afrol News, 24 March - The European Union has suspended its negotiations with Senegal over a new fisheries agreement, the last having expired last December. The outstanding issue causing the temporal suspension of negotiations was the EU's bid for "additional fishing possibilities" (higher quotas), while Senegal fears for the state of its fish stocks. The two parties have resolved almost all the outstanding issues except for the amount of the financial contribution and fishing quotas. According to a statement by the European Commission, its delegation "felt that additional fishing possibilities would have been necessary to justify the substantial increase in the compensation requested by the Senegalese representatives." However, additional fishing quotas could not be justified on the basis of the information available on the state of the fish stocks. In order to guarantee responsible and sustainable fisheries, the EU delegation had proposed to "enter into a partnership with the Senegalese authorities" and offered to help "evaluate the state of the stocks in order to verify whether an increase in fishing possibilities could in the future be justified." Under the agreement with Senegal which expired at the end of 2001, the EU had earmarked some 50 percent (€ 6 million) of its financial compensation of € 12 million per year for the development of the Senegalese fishing sector. Dakar demands an increased compensation of an annual amount of € 20 million. Part of the catches of the EU vessels operating under the former protocol were landed in Senegal to supply the local market and the processing industries ashore. According to the EU, this contributed to local employment and the development of the local processing industry. The EU states it "would like a continuation of such provisions in the new protocol." EU vessels operated in fishing grounds which are only marginally exploited by the local industrial or artisanal fleets. These vessels came from Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece and were mainly fishing tuna, deep-water shrimp, demersal species and cephalopods. Recent reports by the UN environmental agency UNEP have documented that the formerly rich fishing water outside Senegal and Mauritania are suffering from over-fishing. Various fish stocks had been halved during the last decade and some had even been totally depleted. The report was strongly critical towards the bid for high quotas by the EU, Japan and other bidders, depleting local stocks. Senegal and the EU have agreed to resume negotiations of a new fisheries agreement in the coming weeks, and a negotiated solution is probable.
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