EU will not renew criticized fishing agreement with Senegal

The European Union will not renew a fishing agreement with Senegal criticized by many Senegalese, the EU delegation in the West African country announced on Tuesday.

This decision comes after the EU identified Senegal as a “non-cooperating country” in the fight against illegal fishing earlier this year, citing “failures in monitoring, control and surveillance systems” on Senegalese ships in extraterritorial waters as well as on foreign ships in the port of Dakar, the capital.

“Pending encouraging developments, the agreement between the EU and Senegal will not be renewed,” the press release specifies. European ships will have to leave Senegalese waters when the agreement expires on Sunday, and Senegal will no longer receive any financial contributions under the agreement.

The Senegalese government did not immediately react.

The current agreement signed in 2019 allows European vessels to fish in Senegalese waters, but it has been criticized in the country where fish stocks have been depleting for more than a decade due to overfishing.

One in six people in Senegal work in the fishing sector, according to the United States Agency for International Development.

But many local fishermen say they cannot compete with foreign industrial trawlers and barely catch enough fish to make a living.

The EU said the deal’s impact on overfishing was minimal. She said catches by European vessels represented less than 1% of the total catches reported by all fleets in Senegalese waters over the past five years.

Renegotiation of the EU-Senegal fisheries agreement was a key campaign promise of Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, elected in March. In May, he announced an audit of the fishing sector and the EU-Senegal agreement. The results have not been published.