Post-Brexit fishing: Paris awaits a gesture from London to continue negotiations

Published on : 12/11/2021 – 07:23

France said, Friday, December 10, to wait for “a gesture of goodwill” from London to continue discussions on the conflict of post-Brexit fishing rights, after threatening to go to litigation if no progress was made. recorded during the day.

If London “sticks to its position, we will ask the European Commission, in the weekend, to announce that a dispute is engaged”, had reaffirmed Friday morning the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune.

But “if the British today say ‘we are giving a few dozen additional licenses’ (for French fishermen) as a gesture of goodwill (…), we will take that into account (…) and perhaps we will continue “to dialogue, he immediately added.

Under the agreement signed at the end of 2020 between London and Brussels, European fishermen can continue to work in British waters provided they can prove that they were fishing there before. But for more than eleven months, the French and the British have been arguing over the nature and extent of the supporting documents to be provided.

France has obtained 1,004 post-Brexit fishing licenses and “still awaits 104”, according to the French Ministry of the Sea.

“There will not be, I say it very clearly, all the licenses to which we are entitled by this evening”, regretted Clément Beaune Friday, while betting on “a gesture” of the British.

Intensification of discussions

Under pressure from Paris, the Commission asked London at the end of November to settle the fishing license dispute before Friday, December 10. Thursday evening, the United Kingdom sharply rejected this deadline, while Paris calls for European arbitration.

The European Commission, which is leading the negotiations with London on behalf of France, was optimistic midday on the rapid conclusion of a compromise. “The Commission and the UK are mutually committed to bringing their talks to a successful conclusion today (…). The negotiations have really intensified in recent weeks and days,” a spokeswoman said. of the European executive, Vivian Loonela.

“The discussions will continue until late today. We have a mutual understanding, we must now get there, we will try to finish the discussions,” she insisted, recalling that 95% of the license applications claimed had received a positive answer.

However, around 11 p.m. Brussels time (10 p.m. GMT), no announcement had yet been made on the British side on the issuance of additional licenses, while Paris indicated that it did not plan to communicate in the evening.

“It is a technical procedure based on tangible elements, and not deadlines. The intense discussions of the last few days have been constructive but have not yet concluded”, a government spokesman said during the day. British to AFP.

“The Commission sent us new elements yesterday and this morning, and we are examining them with Jersey: this is a good thing, but our decisions will remain guided by the quality of these elements”, he observed.

It’s getting stuck for 40 replacement ships

French Minister of the Sea, Annick Girardin, deplored Thursday the “delaying tactics” of the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands, whose administrations issue licenses independently.

She praised the constructive work carried out with Guernsey, which issued around forty licenses in early December, but castigated the trickle-down issues of Jersey.

On the French Channel coast, the fishermen are at the end of their patience, claiming to have provided “all the required documents”.

It is in the area between 6 and 12 miles off the British coast that the greatest number of French licenses is now lacking. Discussions stumble in particular on the fate of 40 replacement ships (bought to renew the fleet), files which London refuses to consider the priority.

“We have no visibility”, storm Loïc Escoffier, shipowner from Saint-Malo (Saint-Malo) who has three boats, would like to replace one and switch another to “hydrogen or hybrid propulsion”. “A boat ready to sail is 1.5 million euros, you have to be sure of yourself,” he told AFP.

The tone has already been raised on several occasions: a blockade of Jersey by French fishermen last May; French threats of sanctions in October; and more recently, the blocking by French fishermen of the Channel Tunnel’s ports and freight terminal.

With AFP