Raül Romeva i Rueda

Aquest article explica perfectament perquè tanta gent ens oposem a la renovació de l’Acord de Pesca UE-Marroc. En tant que ponent a l’ombra (Shadow Rapporteur) per a aquest assumpte a la Comissió de Pesca del Parlament Europeu, reitero la meva postura contrària a la renovació de l’acord.

EUROPEAN VOICE
FISHERIES Bilateral agreements

Morocco fishing deal ‘poor value for money’

By Toby Vogel

09.06.2011

Study finds that deal is not cost-effective and that agreement could
break international law.

The European Union‘s controversial fisheries
agreement with Morocco is the least cost-effective of all the EU’s existing
fishing deals with third countries, according to a confidential study submitted
to the European Commission in December. 

An evaluation requested and paid for by the
Commission’s department for maritime affairs and fisheries describes the
results of the agreement as “rather disappointing” and says that they could
have been achieved at lower cost. The report, with several passages omitted,
was obtained by European Voice through a request for public access.

Under the terms of the agreement, which began in 2007,
the EU pays €36 million a year to Morocco in return for licences to fish in
Moroccan waters.

The agreement expired in February but continues to
apply provisionally as the Commission is seeking a one-year extension while it
prepares negotiations for a successor agreement. National experts from the EU’s
member states will hold a first discussion of the extension request today (9
June), after the Commission submitted its proposal last Friday (3 June). The
extension will require the support of MEPs, but they are not expected to vote
on it before September.

Carl Haglund, a Finnish Liberal MEP who is
drafting the Parliament’s report on the extension of the fisheries agreement,
said that the matter had been “badly handled” by the Commission. “I am not
happy that we had this sudden extension after asking for the Commission’s views
for a year,” he said. Haglund also said that he had not yet received a
translation of the evaluation report from the French original and that this had
delayed the drafting of his report. He said that an English translation was
expected this week or next week.

Reform

Maria Damanaki, the European commissioner for
fisheries, is keen on reforming the “fundamentals” of all fisheries agreements
with non-member states, according to a spokesman. But several EU member states
on the Mediterranean want to preserve their fishermen’s access to foreign
waters even where the overall cost to the Union is higher than the profit from
such access, as is the case in Morocco.

The evaluation report found that 80% of Morocco’s
public revenue in fisheries comes from the EU agreement, which accounts for
just 5% of the total catch in Morocco’s economic exclusion zone, and describes
this as a “good deal for the Moroccan side”. The report calculated that every
euro invested under the agreement generated just €0.65 in added value. The
agreement with Morocco accounts for one-quarter of spending on bilateral
agreements by the Commission’s department for maritime affairs and fisheries.

The strongest criticism of the fisheries deal with
Morocco comes from representatives of Western Sahara, annexed by Morocco in
1978. The European Parliament’s legal service has backed their claims and found
that the deal breaches international law by ignoring the rights of the
population of Western Sahara. Damanaki has said that the agreement will only be
renewed if the Moroccan government demonstrates that revenue
from the fisheries deal reaches the territory. The Commission is currently
assessing information received from Morocco on the issue.

The evaluation was conducted by Océanic Developpement,
a French consulting firm.

Font foto: European Voice