The European Union's Fisheries Agreements with third countries. Moving from FPA to SFPA: the case study of Seychelles

Abstract

Fisheries agreements between EU-Seychelles have been in place since 1984. Since then, the agreements have been in constant changes in response to the constructive criticisms from NGOs and scientists to the CFP. An exploratory study assessing the relationship between the EU-Seychelles Fisheries Agreements has been conducted. It focuses on the changes and the differences between the Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA); and to finish with the perception whether the SFPA has reached its goals or not. It was not possible to give a final evaluation of the SFPA as the agreement is still being in use and expected to last until January 2020. Yet, a qualitative approach that involves both a literature review and semi-structured interviews allowed a tentative examination of performance of the current agreement. The results indicate that the EU-Seychelles FPA has not fully delivered its objectives toward sustainable development and responsible fisheries. Therefore, it has been revised and improved to SFPA, which came into force January 2014. The difference between the two agreements lies within its nature and characteristics, its protocol and technical annexes. SFPA is four folded: sustainable, transparent, coherent and mutual benefit rather than concentrated only within the sustainability and development approach. Nonetheless, the study revealed that Seychelles suffers from capacity shortage within the Seychelles Fishing Authorities, and as such, SFPA does not achieve its purpose in term of accountability and transparency of the sectoral support so far, which may lead to significant delays in term of infrastructure development in the region.