The European Commission is considering resumption of negotiations for a Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA) with Guinea.
This West African country open to the Atlantic Ocean has 300 km of coastline. Fishing is the main activity of the people living along the coast. Activities in this sector are regulated by the Maritime Fishing Code of 14 September 2015.
In a contribution to the negotiation mandate in 2020, CFFA stressed that in these negotiations, “the EU must ensure that artisanal fishing activities are not encroached upon in order to guarantee both the livelihoods of coastal communities and the food security of the population.” This is an issue that artisanal fishermen have been denouncing for some time. Today, despite the measures put in place by the authorities, artisanal fishermen say they are victims of semi-industrial fishing activities, a category of fishing that “only exists in Guinea.”
According to a decree by the Minister of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Maritime Economy, Ms Charlotte Daffé, signed on 29 December 2021, there are two categories of fishing in Guinea: artisanal fishing and industrial fishing. Artisanal fishing is subdivided into two sub-categories, according to Article 2 of the said Order: traditional artisanal fishing and motorised artisanal fishing. Under industrial fishing is a sub-category which is called semi-industrial fishing in Article 5 of the Order, that which fishermen are used to call “advanced artisanal fishing”…