EU and Cabo Verde Fisheries Partnership Agreement

Council Decision (EU) 2025/643 of 24 March 2025 on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of the Protocol (2024-2029) implementing the Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Cabo Verde

Update

The European Union (EU) has approved the Protocol (2024–2029) implementing the Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) between the EU and Cabo Verde.

Impacted Products

tuna

What is changing?

The Commission has signed a new Implementing Protocol to the FPA between the EU and Cabo Verde. This Protocol allows 24 purse seiners, 22 surface longliners, and 10 pole-and-line vessels of the EU fleet to fish tuna in Cabo Verde’s waters.

The new Protocol:

• aligns the reference tonnage for allotted quota with quota actually used under the previous Protocol (2019–2024)
• will encourage the landing of fishery products in Cabo Verde and employment of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) seamen, possibly with preference for Cabo Verdean seamen, on EU tuna vessels when active in Cabo Verdean waters
• will address other identified challenges, including the lack of live baits, and [concerns about] interactions between EU fleets and local fishers competing for the same tuna stocks.

Why?

The evaluation of the 2019–2024 Protocol between the EU and Cabo Verde is presented by the EU as a win–win agreement for both parties that has broadly met the EU's aims (Defaux and Cappell 2023). However, local and international civil society is asking for a higher degree of visibility and transparency of the agreements signed between the EU and Cabo Verde.

Timeline

The new Regulation applies from 23 July 2024.

What are the major implications for exporting countries?

The new Protocol will provide Cabo Verde a yearly financial contribution of €780,000. This consists of annual fishing access to Cabo Verde’s waters at €350,000 (based on a reference tonnage of 7,000 t), plus support for the implementation of Cabo Verde’s sectoral fisheries policy at €430,000 per year. Cabo Verde will also benefit from securing long-term landings of fish, and use of its processing facilities. Cabo Verde is one of the main suppliers of processed tuna products to the EU market. The development of infrastructure in Cabo Verde has encouraged EU fishers to land tuna and increase their use of local tuna canneries.

Background

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs) ensure consistency between the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy and other European policies, including sustainable use of partner country resources; combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing; integration of partner countries into the global economy; and better political and financial governance of fisheries.

The current SFPA between the EU and Cabo Verde entered into force in December 2006. The Agreement has been beneficial to Cabo Verde because it helps diversify its economy and industrialise its processing sector.

Under the previous Protocol, which expired on 19 May 2024, the EU contributed €400,000 per year for access, in addition to the fees paid by the EU fleet, plus an annual amount of €350,000 to help support and implement Cabo Verde’s sectoral fisheries policy.

Regulation 1380/2013 on the Common Fisheries Policy sets out how SFPAs must be evaluated. These evaluations form the basis for concluding new implementing protocols. On 19 December 2023, the Council adopted a Decision authorising the Commission to open negotiations with Cabo Verde for a new Implementing Protocol to the Agreement.

Cabo Verde enjoys a temporary derogation from the rules on preferential origin, under which limited quantities of prepared or preserved fillets and loins of tuna, mackerel and frigate tuna of non-EU origin sourced outside Cabo Verde and processed in Cabo Verde acquire ‘Cabo Verde’ origin and can be exported to the EU without incurring customs duties (Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus, "GSP+" system).

Resources

Sources