On 23 January, the Council of the EU formally approved the signature and the provisional application – from 1 January 2012 – of a new fisheries partnership agreement between the EU and the Republic of Mozambique. The agreement had initially been concluded in 2007, and subsequently renegotiated in 2011. It grants EU ships – 43 tuna purse seiners and 32 surface liners – a right of access to Mozambique fishing areas. The financial compensation from the EU is €2.940 million for the duration of the protocol – in other words €980,000 per year, split between 520,000 tonnes of compensation for a referential tonnage of 8,000 tonnes per year, and €460,000 per year as support for the development of the fishing sector and Mozambique’s maritime policy.