THE BRUSSELS DECEPTION: HOW EU FISHERIES POLICY DESTROYED WEST AFRICAN SOVEREIGNTY
The technocrats in Brussels, safely insulated within the glass-and-steel corridors of the Berlaymont, have spent the last decade perfecting a peculiar form of maritime gaslighting. They call it the “Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement” (SFPA). In reality, it is a sophisticated mechanism for resource extraction that prioritizes the profit margins of Spanish and French industrial trawlers over the existential survival of West African coastal communities. For years, the European Commission has marketed these deals as a “win-win” for global development, claiming to provide much-needed capital to developing nations in exchange for “surplus” fish. But as the 2019–2024 protocol with Senegal has proven, there is no surplus, only a calculated erasure of local ecology. The failure of this policy is not a mere bureaucratic oversight; it is a direct assault on the economic sovereignty of the Global South, orchestrated by a group of policymakers who value cheap tuna in Madrid more than the stability of the Sahel.
1. THE LEGAL FICTION OF THE ‘SURPLUS’ PRINCIPLE
The foundational failure of the European Union’s fisheries policy lies in its reliance on the “surplus” principle established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Under Article 62 of UNCLOS, a coastal state is required to give other states access to the surplus of the allowable catch if it does not have the capacity to harvest the entire amount itself. Brussels has weaponized this technicality through the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), specifically the 2013 reform (Regulation No 1380/2013), which dictates how the EU fleet operates in external waters. The policy assumes that “surplus” is a static, easily calculated number, but in the volatile ecosystems of the Eastern Central Atlantic, these numbers are often fabricated or based on outdated data.
The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) negotiates these agreements by insisting that if Senegalese artisanal fishers cannot catch every single tuna or hake in their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the EU has a legal right to it. This ignores the biological reality of trophic cascades. When industrial trawlers remove massive quantities of “surplus” small pelagics, like sardinella, to be ground into fishmeal for European salmon farms, they destroy the primary food source for the larger species that local fishers actually depend on. By the time the EU’s “scientific assessments” are completed, the damage is irreversible. The policy is built on a legal fiction that treats the ocean like a warehouse with inventory sheets rather than a living, interconnected biological system.
2. THE 2019–2024 SENEGAL PROTOCOL: A CASE STUDY IN SYSTEMIC UNDERVALUATION
The specific failure of the 2019–2024 protocol between the EU and Senegal serves as a masterclass in lopsided diplomacy. Under this five-year agreement, the EU paid a measly €1.7 million annually for access to Senegalese waters. To put this in perspective, the total value of the fish extracted by the 28 tuna seiners, 8 pole-and-line vessels, and 2 hake trawlers authorized under the deal frequently exceeded the “financial contribution” by a factor of ten. The agreement allowed for a reference tonnage of 10,000 tonnes of tuna per year. However, the “sectoral support” component, meant to develop local Senegalese infrastructure, totaled only €900,000 per year, an amount so negligible that it couldn’t even fund a single modern cold-storage facility in a major port like Mbour.
Furthermore, the technical annexes of the 2019 protocol contained glaring loopholes regarding “by-catch.” Industrial trawlers are notorious for catching non-target species in their massive nets. While the agreement stipulated that a percentage of this by-catch should be landed in Dakar to support local food security, enforcement was virtually non-existent. The European vessels often engaged in “high-grading,” where they dumped lower-value fish (essential for the local market) back into the sea, usually dead, to make room for high-value species destined for export. This was not a partnership; it was a subsidized raiding party. The policy failed because it viewed the Senegalese EEZ as a discount supermarket rather than a national asset requiring conservation.
3. THE COLLAPSE OF THE ARTISANAL SECTOR AND FOOD INSECURITY
The direct consequence of the EU’s policy failure is the systematic dismantling of the Senegalese artisanal fishing sector, which employs upwards of 600,000 people and provides nearly 75% of the animal protein for the domestic population. In the decade leading up to 2026, the price of “Thiof” (white grouper), Senegal’s national fish, skyrocketed by over 300%. What was once a staple of the Senegalese diet became a luxury item, exported to the plates of Europe. This isn’t just an economic statistic; it is a caloric crisis. When the EU fleet competes with local “pirogues” (traditional wooden boats), the result is a foregone conclusion. The industrial vessels use sonar and massive nets to “vacuum” the sea, leaving nothing for the local fishers who venture out in small boats.
Data from the Centre de Recherches Océanographiques de Dakar-Thiaroye (CRODT) consistently showed that stocks of sardinella and other small pelagics were in a state of “over-exploitation” or “collapse.” Despite these warnings, the EU continued to push for access, claiming their vessels were only targeting tuna. However, the ecosystem impact of industrial tuna fishing, including the use of Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs), disrupts the migratory patterns of all species. The policy failed to account for the “social cost of carbon” or the “social cost of protein.” By prioritizing the “external fleet” of the EU, Brussels effectively exported food insecurity to West Africa, forcing a once-thriving maritime nation to become a net importer of frozen fish from abroad.
4. THE MIGRATORY PIPELINE: FROM PIROGUES TO THE CANARY ISLANDS
There is a direct, undeniable link between the failure of international fisheries policy and the surge in irregular migration from West Africa to Europe. When a young Senegalese fisher can no longer make a living because the sea has been emptied by industrial trawlers, the very boat he used for fishing becomes his vehicle for escape. The “Canary Islands Route” became one of the deadliest and most frequented migration paths in the world between 2021 and 2025. In 2023 alone, over 39,000 people arrived in the Canaries, many of them from fishing communities like Saint-Louis and Thiaroye-sur-Mer.
The irony is staggering: the European Union spends billions of Euros on “Frontex” to police its borders and “development aid” to deter migration, while simultaneously pursuing a fisheries policy that destroys the primary source of employment in the regions people are fleeing. This is a policy feedback loop of the worst kind. The “Sustainable” in SFPA is a cruel joke; there is nothing sustainable about a policy that creates a humanitarian crisis on the high seas. European politicians often speak of “addressing the root causes of migration,” yet they refuse to look at the hulls of their own fishing vessels. The failure to align maritime policy with migration strategy is a glaring indictment of the EU’s fragmented geopolitical approach.
5. METHODOLOGICAL FAILURES IN STOCK ASSESSMENT
A significant portion of this policy failure stems from the flawed methodology used to assess fish stocks. The EU relies heavily on “Best Available Scientific Advice,” which sounds rigorous but is often based on incomplete data provided by the coastal states themselves, states that often lack the radar, patrol boats, and satellite monitoring systems to accurately track what is happening in their waters. In Senegal, the CRODT has been chronically underfunded, yet its warnings were frequently sidelined by EU negotiators who preferred the more optimistic projections provided by their own Joint Scientific Committees.
The “Maximum Sustainable Yield” (MSY) model, which is the holy grail of the Common Fisheries Policy, is fundamentally ill-suited for the complex, multi-species fisheries of West Africa. MSY assumes that there is a “surplus” that can be harvested without affecting the population’s ability to regenerate. However, this model does not account for climate change, ocean acidification, or the illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing that often occurs in the shadow of “legal” EU vessels. By the time a “stock collapse” is officially recognized in a report, the species has often already passed the point of no return. The EU’s insistence on using Western-centric, single-species models in a tropical, multi-species environment is a technical failure that has led to ecological catastrophe.
6. THE GEOPOLITICAL PIVOT: DIOMAYE FAYE AND THE END OF L’AFRIQUE-FRANCE
The ultimate failure of the EU’s fisheries policy is its contribution to the loss of European influence in West Africa. The 2024 election of Bassirou Diomaye Faye as President of Senegal marked a seismic shift in the country’s foreign policy. Running on a platform of “sovereignty” and “economic rupture,” the new administration moved quickly to audit and potentially cancel the very fisheries agreements that Brussels fought so hard to maintain. The Senegalese people saw the SFPA for what it was: a vestige of colonial-era resource extraction rebranded for the 21st century.
As the EU’s popularity plummeted due to these predatory policies, geopolitical rivals like China and Russia moved into the vacuum. While the EU maintains a facade of “sustainability,” China’s distant-water fleet operates with even less transparency, and Russia offers security-for-resources deals that appeal to African leaders tired of European moralizing. The EU’s failure to treat Senegal as a genuine partner, rather than a resource bank, has pushed one of the most stable democracies in Africa toward an “anti-Western” realignment. The Brussels bureaucrats thought they were just negotiating for tuna; in reality, they were negotiating away the West’s strategic standing in the Atlantic. The policy failure is total: ecologically, economically, and geopolitically.