"PAY, catch and go." Such is the EU's neo colonial approach towards African coastal resources, a Senegalese delegation said in Dublin yesterday.
Ireland, as the holder of the EU presidency, must help protect the west African state's fishing stocks the delegation said. "Otherwise, our resources will be wiped out in five years," Mr Samba Gueye of Fenagie Peche, the Senegalese Inshore Fisheries Federation, warned.
Europe could not talk about help for developing countries if its own fishing fleet was involved in exploitation to feed the growing EU fish market, the delegation said yesterday following meetings with officials from the Departments of the Marine and Foreign Affairs.
Some 500,000 people in Senegal depend on fisheries for their income, with fish making up 85 per cent of the average west African protein diet. Some 80 per cent of the fish exported from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries comes from Senegal. Yet the EU's agreement with the Senegalese government allowing inshore fishing by Spanish, French and Italian vessels is affecting depleting stocks.
The EU now spends 50 per cent of its total fishery budget on these "third country agreements", according to Mr Harry de Vries, of the Dutch non governmental organisation Novib, who accompanied the Senegalese delegation.
The delegation 15 also calling for a six-to-12 mile exclusive limit as part of the new agreement, due to be negotiated in October during the Irish presidency.
The first EU agreement with Senegal was negotiated in 1979 and costs Brussels £7 million annually, with EU fleets earning "multiples" of this. In Senegal, only 1 per cent of the sum paid is directed towards the inshore fishing fleet.
Despite warnings of stock depletion, an extension of the agreement - in 1992 permitted a 57 per cent increase in the EU catch.
The Senegalese delegation went fishing in a lake in The Hague in the Netherlands last week to make its point during a 10 day European visit. In spite of unexpected visa difficulties, it spent 24 hours in Ireland as guests of Concern Worldwide.
