Members of the European Parliament are being brought up to speed on upcoming votes with background materials prepared by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS). In recent EPRS publications concerning EU fisheries agreements, MarineRegion’s Maritime Boundaries are being used to visualise the area of interest!
Keywords: European Parliament, European Union, fisheries agreements, EEZ
The European Union has a network of fisheries agreements with coastal states around the world, which provide fishing opportunities for EU vessels in their waters. As part of the agreements, the European Union aims to promote sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources in these countries’ waters.
Parliament’s consent is necessary for the conclusion of EU fisheries agreements. Preceding the vote, EPRS prepares a briefing for the Members of the European Parliament, in order for them to make a fully informed decision. For example, EPRS produced such briefings for Parliament’s votes on the agreements with Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, during the June 2020 plenary session.
The documents prepared by the EPRS describe the background, the European Commission proposal and Parliament’s position on the subject. Furthermore, a map is included to situate the area of interest. This map displays the maritime boundaries (Exclusive Economic Zones) as provided by Marine Regions. This Marine Regions dataset also includes special management areas, such as the joint development zone between Nigeria and São Tomé and Príncipe or the Guinea-Bissau/Senegal joint management area (cross-hatched).
The purpose of Marine Regions is to create a standard, relational list of geographic names coupled with information and maps of the geographic location of these features. This improves access and clarity of the different geographic, marine names and allows an improved linking of these locations to databases to integrate biodiversity data, for example.