WRITTEN QUESTION E-2745/01

by Jonas Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL) to the Council

(10 October 2001)

Subject: EU fisheries agreement with South Africa

For years the EU has been attempting to conclude a fisheries agreement with South Africa, but in spring 2001 the South Africans gave a flat refusal. The fisheries negotiations then collapsed. The trade agreement with South Africa did however come into force in January 2000.

It might however be feared that South Africa's refusal to allow in foreign fishing fleets might in the longer term have implications for the major trade agreement between the EC and South Africa, which took four years to negotiate. There is a link between the trade agreement and the wrecked fisheries negotiations. Duty-free entry for South African fisheries products is directly linked to the outcome of the fisheries negotiations. Nobody is saying it outright, but there is also a degree of pressure from the EC with regard to wines and spirits, negotiations on which have yet to be concluded. Out of the Member States only Sweden and the Netherlands had ratified the trade agreement by May 2001. These two countries have no interests in the fisheries or wine industries. The other Member States seem to be pursuing a wait-and-see policy. In May 2001 no country had yet threatened to back out from the trade agreement, but the southern European countries with the most negative views include those with the largest fishing fleets.

What is the Council doing to encourage ratification of the trade agreement by the Member States? Can it guarantee that no linkage is made between the failure of the fisheries negotiations and the fact that the trade agreement with South Africa has not been ratified by all Member States?

Reply

(12 February 2002)

1. The negotiations for the conclusion of a Fisheries Agreement were suspended in March 2001 when South Africa, in addition to cooperation in a number of fishery-related areas, refused to include access to South African fishery resources for European vessels. This position was seen as contrary to the mutual understanding reached at a technical meeting held in Cape Town in December 2000 and, furthermore, did not meet the objectives enumerated in the mandate adopted by the Council in September 1995. The Community is ready to resume the negotiations; however, this would require mutual understanding on access to the fishery resources in the South African exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

2. The Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) with South Africa was concluded in 1999. At this juncture, the state of negotiations for a fisheries agreement with South Africa should affect neither the provisional application nor the full entry into force of the TDCA. Council Decision 1999/753/EC of 29 July 1999 establishes provisional and partial application of the TDCA as of 1 January 2000, pending ratification by the parties of the Agreement. As this is a mixed agreement, it also requires ratification by the Member States. As of 22 October 2001, only Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden have ratified the TDCA.

3. Following the second meeting of the South Africa-EU Cooperation Council on 26 June 2001, a group of high level officials met on 25 July 2001, to tackle the outstanding wine and spirits issues in the framework of the negotiations for wine and spirits agreement. At that meeting, the experts agreed on a memorandum of understanding on outstanding issues, which will be the basis for the conclusion of the wine and spirits agreement.