Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki is expected to present soon a request for a mandate to negotiate renewal of the fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco, but limited to the Northern part of the country, excluding the maritime zones off the coast of the Western Sahara. If successful, this plan would oblige upwards of 100 European vessels to cease their activities in the fishing zones concerned. The draft mandate is in the inter-services consultation stage at the European Commission, expected to last until February.

The latest EU-Morocco fisheries agreement, signed in 2007, expires on 27 February 2011. It covers fishing licences for 110 European fishing vessels, of which 100 from Spain, and establishes rights of access to Moroccan waters at the cost of €36.1 million a year to the EU. Part of this amount goes to Morocco’s fisheries sector and the remainder to development. Talks on renewal of the accord, under way for the last few months, have been hampered by the problem of the Western Sahara. After a European Parliament report concluded that the agreement infringes international law since the Western Saharan population does not receive its share of the EU contribution, the Commission asked the Moroccan authorities to prove that the agreement is also benefiting this population. At a meeting with Morocco’s Agriculture and Fisheries Minister, Aziz Akhannouch, on 21 October 2010, Damanaki demanded solid and clear information confirming that this population is sharing in the benefits of the agreement. “We cannot renew this agreement until the Moroccan authorities have transmitted this information,” she said at the time.

The commissioner has not yet obtained the required information. Observing that time is starting to be short for negotiating a full agreement in due form, she proposes in the draft mandate submitted to the College of Commissioners a temporary solution aimed at limiting the scope of the new protocol to the fisheries zone situated North of the 27th parallel (at exactly 27°40’N), which marks the border of the Western Sahara. The Commission could also include a human rights clause and a clause designed to guarantee that scientific advice will be taken into account and that control measures will be taken to ensure sustainable, responsible and environmentally acceptable fisheries. Other options are possible, including temporary suspension of the agreement or the adoption of transitional measures pending conclusion of the negotiations and a solution on the core issue. At this stage, no date has been set for the resumption of talks. Little time remains to work out a solution, in the absence of which the resulting legal void would oblige all European vessels to leave the area.