Libreville, Wednesday, September 23, 2026 – Gabon and the European Union are set to reopen negotiations on a partnership that goes far beyond the simple question of European vessels’ access to Gabonese waters. Following the end of the previous agreement, Libreville now aims to redefine the economic, industrial, and operational terms of a cooperation framework designed to govern the exploitation of its fisheries resources.

On September 18, the Gabonese government approved the launch of negotiations for a new Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement and its implementing protocol.

This resumption of dialogue comes more than a year after Gabon denounced the previous agreement on June 4, 2025. With its protocol having expired on June 28, 2026, the European arrangement is now considered suspended. EU vessels therefore no longer have a framework allowing them to fish in Gabonese waters. The former exclusivity clause also prohibits bypassing this situation through simple individual authorizations.

For Libreville, the upcoming negotiation is thus an opportunity to review the balance of a partnership whose local economic benefits appeared limited compared to the potential of the resources involved.

An economic model to reconsider

The first issue will necessarily be financial. The previous protocol was based on a reference capacity of 32,000 tonnes used to calculate the European contribution, without guaranteeing that volume of catches. The European Union paid 1.6 million euros per year for access to resources, plus an annual envelope of one million euros intended for sector development.

However, the results observed were far below the theoretical capacities. Between 2022 and 2024, European vessels caught an average of 10,604 tonnes per year. Of the 27 authorizations planned for purse seine tuna vessels, only 54% were used on average. The six licenses reserved for pole-and-line tuna vessels were never used.

This difference between theoretically opened rights and actual use of resources should logically weigh on the next architecture of the partnership. The number of vessels, the access price per tonne, and the methods for calculating the European contribution are among the parameters likely to be renegotiated.

But the central issue is probably elsewhere, in Gabon’s ability to transform fishing activity into real local economic value.

From water access to value creation

The previous protocol stipulated that at least 30% of catches could be transshipped in a Gabonese port, subject to acceptable economic and commercial conditions. When a vessel carried out a transshipment in Gabon, its by-catches also had to be fully landed there.

In practice, these provisions were rarely used. European vessels rarely frequented Gabonese port infrastructure, and their catches were mainly landed and processed in Côte d’Ivoire. The European assessment estimates that Gabon captured only 23% of the added value generated by the arrangement, compared to 47% benefiting other actors, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, through port activities, onboard jobs, and processing.

The next agreement will therefore have to determine whether Gabon intends simply to continue monetizing access to its resource or to build around it a value chain more firmly rooted in its territory. The question of landings, port infrastructure, processing, and national employment thus becomes as important as the amount of financial compensation.

Sector financing is another potential point of friction. Of the 5 million euros in sectoral support planned over five years, only 2 million had been transferred at the time of the evaluation conducted between December 2024 and May 2025. Just over 20% of the multi-year envelope had been consumed. Some infrastructure remained unfinished, while the indicators used measured the execution of deliverables rather than their real economic effects.

The next agreement must be measurable

Finally, the negotiations will need to correct several technical weaknesses. The previous arrangement provided for the embarkation of qualified Gabonese sailors, but no list meeting the required criteria had been transmitted to European shipowners. The compensation provided for in case of non-embarkation was therefore not applied.

Catch monitoring must also be strengthened. The electronic reporting system was not fully operational, and methodological differences between the two parties had produced discrepancies in available data. Under these conditions, transparency of actual catch volumes becomes a determining factor in assessing the value of the partnership.

The European evaluation recommends reconsidering the six never-used licenses for pole-and-line tuna vessels and adapting the number of authorizations for purse seiners.

The next negotiation will therefore not focus solely on an amount paid by Brussels in exchange for access to Gabonese waters. It must determine the conditions of a partnership where every tonne fished can be linked to identifiable benefits for the Gabonese economy, in terms of revenue, jobs, landings, processing, and infrastructure development.

For both Libreville and Brussels, the challenge now is to draw the consequences of the previous agreement. The future partnership will be judged less on its theoretical commitments than on its ability to produce verifiable results. For Gabon, the renegotiation thus opens an important sequence where fisheries resources become not only a question of access but a potential instrument of economic sovereignty and local value creation.