France fails to issue mandatory authorisations for French vessels fishing in West Africa
Press Release Date: June 2, 2025
Location: Madrid
Contact:
Irene Campmany | email: icampmany@oceana.org | tel.: +34 682 622 245
Oceana’s findings reveal a breach of the EU Regulation on the Sustainable Management of External Fishing Fleets
Oceana, using Global Fishing Watch1 data, has identified eight French vessels that appeared to be fishing without valid authorisations in the waters of Angola, Ghana, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, for 682 hours of apparent fishing, between 2020 and 2023. Oceana’s analysis also suggests that French-flagged fishing vessels still appear to be fishing in the waters of Guinea and Sierra Leone without public authorisations in 2025. This indicates a systemic failure by the French authorities to comply with their obligations under EU transparency and fisheries control rules.
Under the Regulation on the Sustainable Management of External Fishing Fleets, all EU fishing vessels operating outside of EU waters must hold valid authorisations that need the approval of the Member State, in this case France, and the European Commission. Fishing cannot start before such authorisations are issued. Once accepted, the authorisations must be made public in the fishing authorisations database of the EU.
“The Regulation on the Sustainable Management of External Fishing Fleets was created to ensure that all activities of EU-flagged vessels were transparent and legal. The lack of compliance with the issuing of authorisations and their publication prevents authorities, coastal states, local stakeholders, and civil society to assess whether EU fishing vessels are operating with permission outside its waters. France’s failure to adhere to this requirement puts at risk the credibility of the management of the European long-distance fishing fleet and should be addressed without delay” explains Vanya Vulperhorst, Illegal Fishing and Transparency campaign director at Oceana in Europe.
The issues with France were already identified in 2021 when the European Commission launched an infringement procedure against the country for failing to control its external fleet and comply with its fisheries obligations, including the requirement to notify the fishing authorisations to the Commission. Although the process was closed in 2024, the lack of compliance persists for some French-flagged vessels.
Oceana therefore urges the European Commission to investigate further and consider reopening the infringement procedure against the country. It also urges France to set up an effective system to ensure that all fishing authorisations are validated, communicated to the EU Commission, and uploaded to the public database without delay.
References:
1 Global Fishing Watch (https://globalfishingwatch.org/) is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing ocean governance through increased transparency of human activity at sea. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors, which are not connected with or sponsored, endorsed or granted official status by Global Fishing Watch. By creating and publicly sharing map visualizations, data and analysis tools, Global Fishing Watch aims to enable scientific research and transform the way our ocean is managed. Global Fishing Watch’s public data was used in the production of this publication. Any and all references to “fishing” should be understood in the context of Global Fishing Watch’s fishing detection algorithm, which is a best effort to determine “apparent fishing effort” based on vessel speed and direction data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) collected via satellites and terrestrial receivers. As AIS data varies in completeness, accuracy and quality, and the fishing detection algorithm is a statistical estimate of apparent fishing activity, therefore it is possible that some fishing effort is not identified and conversely, that some fishing effort identified is not fishing. For these reasons, GFW qualifies all designations of vessel fishing effort, including synonyms of the term “fishing effort,” such as “fishing” or “fishing activity,” as “apparent,” rather than certain. Any/all GFW information about “apparent fishing effort” should be considered an estimate and must be relied upon solely at your own risk. GFW is taking steps to make sure fishing effort designations are as accurate as possible.
