The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) received more than €1 million grant from the European Development Fund, to improve the contribution of the small scale fisheries sector to food security in the Caribbean.

The piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has increased dramatically with 42% in 2012, as compared to the previous year, reaching 51 attacks, according to the last numbers released by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

The European Parliament backed on Wednesday (6 February) overwhelmingly reform to end over-fishing and restore EU sea stocks by 2020.
The revised policy Common Fisheries Policy, to take effect in 2014, will enforce sustainable catch limits - meaning fishermen can catch no more than a given stock can reproduce in a year. It will also end the practice of discards: throwing undersized fish or unwanted species back into the sea, where they usually die anyway.

ACP Fish II Programme is entering the final year for implementing the last 75 projects from a total of 189 to complete all the Programme planned assignment in support of fisheries management and trade in the ACP regions.

On Wednesday 6 February, during the European Parliament Plenary in Strasbourg, the MEPs are expected to give their final vote on a reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). This will the first time when the EP will vote as a co-legislator on the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.
In December last year, The European Parliament's Fisheries Committee voted on major reforms to the CFP demanding sustainable quotas by 2015 and an end to discards.

Council of the EU:
- 4 February: Meeting of General Affairs Council (GAC)
- 5-6 February: COREPER I
- 5 February: COREPER II
- 7-8 February: European Council

European Parliament:
- 4-7 February: European Parliament Plenary
- 4-7 February: European Parliament committee meetings

ACP Group:
- 4 February: S/C on Sustainable Development
- 5 February: 5th Steering Committee Meeting of the ACP Fish2 Programme
- 8 February: S/C on Political, Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs

You can also read our newspaper “CTA Brussels Daily” (fed by our Twitter account), follow our new Facebook group CTABrussels and our Twitter account CTABrussels to receive up-to-date information on EU-ACP events.

Mauritian fishermen are reported to be displeased that the European Union (EU) vessels are depleting their fish resources. The EU fishing trawlers, mainly from Spain, France and Portugal, operating under the Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) signed in 2012 between Mauritius and the EU are said to be scouring the sea around Mauritius are. This leads local fishermen need to go further out in the sea to be able to catch fish.

The negotiations on a new fisheries agreement between the European Union (EU) and Morocco "have advanced well in the definitions of technical conditions, and may be closed this week.”, sayed the Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Miguel Arias Cañete at the meeting of the Council of Ministers for Agriculture and Fisheries of the EU, which took place on Monday 28 January in Brussels.

In her key-note speech at the event organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) for the presentation of its opinion "Maritime piracy: strengthening the EU response" on Thursday 24 January, Commissioner Damanaki Commissioner Damanaki indicated that the European Commission was currently drafting a new "EU security strategy for the global maritime domain".

At the last Council meeting on Agriculture and Fisheries held in Brussels on Monday 28 January 2013, there was a large support amongst member states reaching a political agreement on the common fisheries policy (CFP) reform package by the end of June 2013.