Cabo Verde: revised 2025 fish quotas

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1243 of 25 June 2025 amending Annexes I and II of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/1288 as regards the reallocation of unused quotas for prepared or preserved fillets of tuna and tuna loins (raw, cooked and frozen), prepared or preserved mackerel fillets and prepared or preserved frigate tuna or frigate mackerel fillets

Update

Under the European Union (EU) generalised scheme of tariff preferences (GSP+), Cabo Verde has quotas for several fish species. Seven hundred tonnes of the tuna fillets and loins quota were unused in 2024. The EU has agreed to reallocate this unused 2024 quota to 2025, increasing the quotas for prepared or preserved fillets of mackerel by 300 tonnes, and of frigate tuna by 400 tonnes.

Impacted Products

Prepared or preserved: fillets of tuna and tuna loins (raw, cooked, and frozen); mackerel fillets; frigate tuna or frigate mackerel fillets.

What is changing?

In 2024, 700 tonnes of Cabo Verde’s quota of prepared or preserved tuna fillets and loins were not used. Following a request from Cabo Verde, the EU has agreed to reallocate the unused 2024 quotas, adding the following amounts to 2025 quotas:

• 300 tonnes for prepared or preserved mackerel fillets
• 400 tonnes for prepared frigate tuna fillets.

Details of all available quotas can be found in Annexes I and II of Regulation 2025/1243.

Why?

The EU’s decision is an exceptional one aimed at supporting Cabo Verde’s fisheries processing sector. The decision follows the granting of an exceptional derogation in 2024 (Regulation 2024/1288), allowing fish originating in other countries but processed in Cabo Verde to be exported to the EU under the quota arrangement (see Background).

Timeline

The revised quantities apply only to the quota period 1 January to 31 December 2025.

Background

Exports from Cabo Verde benefit from zero import tariffs for about two-thirds of EU tariff lines under the generalised scheme of tariff preferences (GSP+). Generally (under Regulation 2015/2446), GSP(+) countries can benefit from these lower import tariffs only for products that “originate in the beneficiary country”. However, since 2019 Cabo Verde has been granted exceptions for certain quantities of fish products processed in Cabo Verde from fish of other origins.

This exception reflects:

• the limited quantities of tuna and mackerel that Cabo Verde can supply (limited fishing season and quantities caught)
• a fish processing industry with greater capacity than can be met by Carbo Verde’s catch
• the delayed entry into force of the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and West Africa, which prevents Cabo Verde benefiting from regional cumulation rules.

In 2024, the EU granted a lower quantity than initially requested by Cabo Verde.

Through the generalised scheme of tariff preferences (GSP) (Regulation 978/2012), the EU aims to assist lower-income countries to integrate into the global economy, reduce poverty, and protect core human rights and the environment. These countries can benefit from different trading benefits under the current GSP scheme:

• Standard GSP: removes or reduces import tariffs on approximately two-thirds of EU tariff lines for lower- and lower-middle-income countries.
• GSP+: establishes 0% import tariffs for broadly the same tariff lines as the Standard GSP for vulnerable lower- and lower-middle-income countries. A country is considered vulnerable when its largest export products are mainly exported to the EU (>75% of its total exports) and it implements international conventions related to human rights/labour rights.
• Everything But Arms (EBA): 0% import tariffs and zero quotas for all products except arms and ammunition for least developed countries.

Standard GSP and GSP+ arrangements apply from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2027. There is no time limit on the EBA arrangement. See Review of generalised scheme of tariff preferences (GSP).

Cabo Verde benefits from the special tariff arrangement GSP+.

Resources

Sources