The deadline is therefore set for Sunday November 17, 2024 at midnight. From this date, European fishing boats will have to leave the waters of Senegal, where they have had the right to operate for five years, under an agreement between Brussels and Dakar. An agreement which will ultimately not be renewed.
“It would not be coherent for the European Union, which has a zero tolerance policy towards IUU (illegal, undeclared and unregulated) fishing, to renew an agreement with countries which have been notified of this type of fishing. difficulties” explained Tuesday, November 12, EU Ambassador Jean-Marc Pisani. The European Union had indeed sent a “yellow card“in Senegal last spring, citing “failures” of the Dakar authorities in the fight against illegal fishing.
The story is not the same in Dakar, while the Senegalese government claims the decision not to extend the agreement. “The State was not yet in a position to negotiate” retorted the Minister of Fisheries, Fatou Diouf. “As soon as I arrived here, even before we received the yellow card, I had commissioned an evaluation and this evaluation is underway“. A position of sovereignty in the face of Europeans, which also responds to the anger of Senegalese fishermen, who have long denounced the scarcity of fish, and the presence of foreign factory boats, when they, for the most part, still fish with traditional canoes. .
Beyond the cultural symbol, fishing represents the country’s primary activity, with around 50,000 fishermen, and at least 600,000 jobs directly linked to the sector, or almost 20% of the country’s active population. Coming to power eight months ago, the new president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, promised the Senegalese to return their revenues from the country’s natural resources. A crisis which comes as the president faces crucial legislative elections on Sunday November 17, 2024, the day the agreement expires.
Enough to justify, perhaps, the content of the reactions. But the audit ordered by the president when he came to power must also and above all respond to the omnipresence of Chinese boats in the region. If China has never signed a fishing agreement with Dakar, its boats swarm and literally plunder the resources off the coast of West Africa, where the overfishing rate is estimated at more than 50%. A worrying figure, given that 20% of fish caught illegally in the world are caught in the region. A gigantic windfall, worth several billions for Chinese fishermen, because the region is a fishing paradise with an incredibly rich ecosystem.
To escape controls or sanctions, these Chinese trawlers now use nominees and pass under the Senegalese flag. A practice difficult to quantify, but clearly widespread. For its part, Dakar has promised to tackle it, but controls remain very limited, while scientists are alarmed by a collapse of species.
