
A 45-year retrospective of the European Union’s fishing access agreements with coastal States of the Global South
Since the late 1970s, EU fishing access agreements have structured the Union’s fishing activities in the waters of developing coastal States. Over time, these agreements have narrowed in scope, increasingly focusing on tuna fisheries, while public subsidies have been unevenly distributed across a small segment of the EU fleet. Their evolution reflects ongoing tensions between economic interests, sustainability, and equity.