by Federico Guerrieri

Immigration has always been an important issue in internal politics, especially in Southern Europe. Migrants are often seen as responsible for all sorts of national problems, from the high level of unemployment to the criminality issues. But the question we want to ask here is: why do so many human beings actually risk their life trying to arrive in Europe? Is the EU commercial policy responsible for the impoverishment of the Third World?

This is just the first of several articles and events that European Alternatives will produce about this issues in the next weeks. Today we will analyze the case of Senegal, a country from where over 30,000 clandestine migrants have tried to arrive in Spain last year shouting “Barca o Barsar” (Barcelona or death).

Senegal is one of the poorest country in the world, also “thanks” to the era of French colonisation. Today, the European Union is accused of continuing to unsustainably use and exploit its sea resources, since back in 1979 the EU and Senegal signed an agreement permitting European boats to use Senegal’s sea, which provoked an excessive exploitation of sea resources.

Fish is the primary source of food for the Senegalese and in the fish sector almost 20% of the population is employed. Because of the excessive number of boats, Senegal’s marine ecosystem has started to deteriorate. Between 1994 and 2005, the weight of fish taken from the country’s waters fell from 95,000 tons to 45,000 tons. Moroevoer, the number of boats owned by Senegalese citizens fell dramatically, as they cannot compete with large European fishing vessels.

ActionAid shows that fishing families which once ate three times a day are now eating only once or twice. As the price of fish rises, their customers also go hungry. Emblematic is the case of Rashid Sumilia, who fishes in a traditional pirogue, a sea-going canoe, and at the end of a day’s work catches $6 worth of fish and spends $4 on fuel.

The government of Senegal knows this, and in 2006 it refused to renew its fishing agreement with the EU. But European fishermen – mostly from Spain and France – have found ways round the ban. They have been registering their boats as Senegalese, buying up quotas from local fishermen and transferring catches at sea from local boats. These practices mean that they can continue to take the country’s fish, and have no obligation towards the government of Senegal. Gueye, President of the “Conseil Interprofessionnel de la peche artisanale au Senegal” (Conipas), a group of associations which defend the rights of independent workers, well affirms that “Europe cannot close its eyes when its boats steal our fish and then complain when our young guys attempt to escape to the Canary Islands. There is a relation between the two facts”.

The European trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, has been seeking to impose new trade agreements on 76 of the world’s poorest countries: the African, Caribbean and Pacific nations (ACP), adopting what many have critiqued as a neo-colonial tactic.

The agreements insist that European companies have the right both to establish themselves freely on African soil, and to receive the same treatment as national groups. According to these terms, Senegal would be forbidden to ensure that its fish is used to sustain its own industry and to feed its own people. The dodges used by European fishermen would be legalised.

ActionAid shows that Mandelson’s office has ignored these problems, raising the pressure on reluctant countries and moving ahead in the negotiations at a pace much faster than the African nations could handle. In December ACP trade ministers published a joint statement deploring the enormous pressure that has been brought to bear on the ACP States by the European Commission. If the aim of these negotiations had been to enrich European companies at the expense of the poor, Peter Mandelson would have done well. If, as the commission claims, the partnership agreements are primarily conceived as an instrument for development, his interventions have been disastrous. He appears to have pursued these talks in the style of a 21st Century viceroy: no humanitarian concern is allowed to obstruct commercial interests.

The fact that the European Union is not able to satisfy the internal demand of fish cannot justify a neo-colonialist exploitation policy against Third World countries. All the more so when evidence shows that the European Union’s commercial politics is strictly related with the arrive of thousands of immigrants from the African coasts.

It would be wrong to conclude by simply blaming the EU. National governments have, at best, done no better, and, more often, much worse. European Alternatives believes that it is necessarily at a European and transnational level that the great injustices of contemporary trade agreements have to be redressed, beginning with the public demand for responsible policy of the European Union towards developing countries.

Not only would a just Eurpean approach to trade be more helpful in controlling the phenomenon of migration than restrictive or expulsion policies, but it would also represent a moral duty for an institution proclaiming itself as the protector of human rights in the world.