Fool’s Gold

Civitas, 21 April 2009

The EU will host a conference this week to discuss plans to tackle piracy in the waters off the East Coast of Africa.
Pirate attacks in the area have recently hit the International headlines because the desired booty is no fool’s gold – it is vast and valuable cargoes, and often crew.

According to the BBC, in 2008 there were 130 attacks, mostly in the Gulf of Aden, which have been hugely damaging for the “world’s busiest shipping lane”. A series of highly publicised hijackings include the recent kidnapping of Captain Richard Philips, who was held hostage in a life boat by four pirates after their failed attempt to hijack his ship, the 17,000 ton Maersk Alabama, which was carrying food Aid to East Africa.
The piracy attacks off the East African coast defy comprehension because they appear to be a ‘David and Goliath’ battle between men in dinghies and immense ships.  However, these modern-day pirates are nothing like the jovial rum-drinking and ‘shiver-me-timbers’ stereotype envisaged in Hollywood blockbusters – the ‘Davids in the dinghies’ are repeatedly overpowering the ‘Goliath’ vessels.  Today’s piracy is far from the child’s play envisaged in J.M. Barry’s handiwork, where Captain Hook and his crew of assorted scallywags were the only “grown-up” inhabitants of Neverland. Modern-day piracy is a big bucks business, complicated by high-powered weaponry. And many of today’s pirates feel they have little to lose, which makes the situation far more dangerous.

In an attempt to stem the attacks, an international naval task force has been patrolling the waters off Somalia since late 2008. The task force contains the EU’s first ever naval mission (EU NAVFOR), which the French defence minister called a “marvellous symbol” of moves towards a Euro-military and defence policy…  Geoffrey Van Orden MEP who is the Conservatives’ defence spokesman in Europe, was quoted in the Telegraph as saying “The EU is desperate to find military operations that it can stick its flag on in order to give credibility to its defence pretensions.”  The crisis should not simply provide a battle ground for the EU to flex its impatient militarised muscles.

The Piracy is a sign of the huge problems brewing in the turbulent waters off the East African coast. The EU’s challenge is to recognise how it could have contributed to these problems and to seek to redress them immediately. For example, EUobserver reports that “Spanish trawlers were fishing illegally in Somali waters” where the “tuna stocks are plentiful and very lucrative”. This past action has gone some way to fuel the crisis in war-torn Somalia because domestic fishing crews were hit hard by reduced fish stocks.  EUobserver cites a report commissioned by the UK government in 2005, which showed that the Somali economy loses an estimated €73 million a year due to illegal fishing.

The current crisis in the East African waters began with local crews “protecting their patch” from illegal fishing.  Then, motivated by desperation, armed with of increasingly sophisticated weaponry, and tempted by the world’s busiest shipping lane, it is no surprise that piracy off the Somali coast has spiralled out of control.

It would be a stretch to argue that the current piracy problems are singularly the fault of EU fishing policy, but the troubles highlight an urgent need for the EU to scrutinise and amend its fisheries policy to ensure fairness and sustainability both outside and inside of the EU.

For example, the EU’s fisheries policy was called into question last week when French fishermen blockaded three major ports, causing disruption across the English Channel (”La Manche”), which affected both tourism and trade. The French fishermen were protesting against EU fishing quotas, which they say threaten their livelihoods by placing unrealistic limits on the amount of fish that they are allowed to catch. According to some protestors, they have already used up their quotas for the year – so, again, they have nothing to lose. At least they need not resort to piracy, but they had reportedly told the media that they were willing to go to any lengths to ensure concessions from the EU. France eventually caved in with a proposal for increased Direct Aid for indebted fishing vessels.

Illegal fishing is not the only damage to spill over from Europe. Foreign ships are also illegally “dumping industrial, medical and even radioactive waste” in the waters off Eastern Africa due to the huge cost of legally dumping the hazardous materials in Europe.

This week’s EU conference must evaluate the current crisis to identify all of the origins, especially those originating from within the EU itself. Examining the wider International consequences of EU legislation and its implications should surely be a main concern.