EU–Mauritania fisheries protocol expires on November 14, European fleet faces risk of fishing halt!

One of the EU's most important fisheries partnerships with West Africa is approaching its expiry date. The current protocol to the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA) between the EU and Mauritania will expire on November 14, 2026, and renewal negotiations have yet to be completed. On September 24, a European Commission spokesperson confirmed that the fourth round of negotiations was held in June this year, and that "the EU is fully committed to the negotiation process and is working closely with the Mauritanian authorities to conclude it as soon as possible." With less than two months to the expiry date, the future of the European fleet in West African waters remains unresolved.

This is the largest fisheries agreement between the EU and a third country. The current protocol, in force since November 15, 2021, grants the EU fleet fishing opportunities of up to 280,050 tonnes per year, covering shrimp, demersal fish, tuna and small pelagic species, benefiting fleets from 10 member states; the EU pays approximately EUR 60.8 million per year for this. Fisheries cooperation between the two sides has continued in various forms since 1987, and Mauritanian waters host traditional fishing grounds for Spanish trawler fleets and tuna fleets—in 2024 alone, 33 Spanish fishing vessels were licensed in Mauritanian waters, catching nearly 15,737 tonnes.

The complexity of the negotiations lies in the mismatch between the two sides' demands. The EU side wants to reduce fishing opportunities, align financial payments with actual utilisation rates, and strengthen sustainability and labour provisions; Mauritania, for its part, faces structural demands from its domestic fisheries sector—artisanal fisheries provide more than 47,000 direct jobs in Mauritania, nearshore resources of high-value species such as octopus have long been under pressure, and a policy brief by the Brussels-based NGO CFFA-CAPE points out that the allocation of industrial quotas has already squeezed the operating space of artisanal fishers. In several rounds of negotiations held in Las Palmas in March 2026 and in May and June, the two sides still had not bridged their differences on access conditions, quotas and financial compensation.

Anxiety in the European industry has become public. On September 24, the European Fisheries Alliance (Europêche) and the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) jointly called on the European Commission to ensure the timely renewal of the protocol, warning that if a new protocol cannot be signed before November 14, the European fleet will be forced to stop operating in Mauritanian waters. The ETF further put forward two fallback demands: if negotiations cannot be completed on schedule, the current protocol should be extended by one year to maintain continuity of operations; and if the fleet stops fishing due to a gap in the protocol, temporary cessation payments for fishing enterprises and affected workers should be automatically triggered.

The direction of this protocol carries implications beyond Europe. In recent years, the Chinese fleet, relying on the long-term cooperation agreement signed with Mauritania in 2010, has gradually replaced the European fleet's share in species such as octopus, and a contraction of EU access in Mauritanian waters will directly change the balance of power among fleets in West African coastal waters. Mauritania's resource allocation policy—the division of quotas between industrial fishing and artisanal fisheries, and its openness to foreign fleets—is the core indicator for observing this change.

The timetable is already clear: the final round or rounds of negotiations between October and November 14 will determine whether the European fleet stays with a new protocol, transitions under a one-year extension, or faces a gap in operations in West African waters. The outcome of the negotiations and the fishing industry's demands for cessation payments warrant continued tracking.