EU delegation pays courtesy call on President Faure |22 February 2017

A delegation of the European Union paid a courtesy call on President Danny Faure yesterday at State House.

Led by European Union (EU) ambassador Lina Marjaana Sall, the group also comprised Rajesh Parboteeah,, project manager; Lionnel Majesté-Larrouy, the French ambassador to the Seychelles and Caron Röhsler, the British high commissioner to Seychelles. The delegation also called on Vice-President Vincent Meriton.

It is Ms Sall’s fourth courtesy call on the local presidency since she presented her credentials one and half years ago. She is the EU representative based in Mauritius, which administers Mauritius, the Comoros and the Seychelles.

Ms Sall said her call was also an opportunity to meet President Faure to congratulate him on his new responsibilities and also to meet members of the new government as there has been many changes since her last visit in June last year.

She said the other aim of her visit was to discuss the bold and solid partnership between the Seychelles and the EU.

“There are many continuing projects. We are very involved in supporting the climate change-related activities where for example I will be on La Digue where the EU will be doing a climate change mitigation activity. There will be a big programme on the implementation of economic partnership agreement of €10 million and this will be huge. And with the aim of supporting Seychelles capacity to better reap the full benefit of this economic partnership by the diversification of its economy, could be on the fishery, tourism sectors, to support the SMEs enabling business environment,” she said.

Regarding the fishery element, Ms Sall said the EU has the biggest tuna fishery partnership agreement in the whole Indian Ocean region and with Seychelles also. She describes it as a key element in the partnership.

The €10 million economic partnership agreement project is still under formulation at the Department of Foreign Affairs where discussions are being held.

Ms Sall added the EU is involved in other fields and one of the key issues is maritime security. She said as the region has approved the maritime security project objective four and five targets, she has informed the president that Seychelles will host the operational centre.

“The EU will fund that centre as soon as it is established,” she said.