Fisheries and fish-related industries comprise an important part of the economic activities in many developing countries. However, many of these countries have limited opportunities to fish outside their coastal zones, since this requires a highly capitalized fleet. A way to utilize national fish resources is to make fisheries agreements whereby foreign fleets pay for the opportunity to fish. For some countries the compensation for fisheries agreements constitutes 30?50 per cent of the total government budget.

In this report the EU’s sustainable partnership agreements with countries in Western Africa, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean are analysed. The purpose is to discuss the positive and negative aspects of the agreements and to identify areas in which the agreements can be improved to contribute better to biological and economic sustainability.

The report is in Swedish with an English summary: Sieps rapport 2016:12