(Bloomberg) —
France’s president Emmanuel Macron backed away from his imminent threat to punish the U.K. for restricting the post-Brexit access of French fishing boats in British waters, saying he would give negotiations more time.
“The British are going to come back to us tomorrow with further proposals. We’ll see where we are at the end of the day,” Macron told reporters in Glasgow, as a French deadline for retaliatory action approached. “We won’t be bringing in sanctions while we’re negotiating.”
Macron’s decision followed a day of tense negotiations, with the U.K.-France fishing spat at risk of overshadowing the COP26 climate talks. France had threatened to introduce additional customs controls on goods entering from Britain and block its fishing boats from landing their catches in France, if progress wasn’t made on issuing extra licenses by midnight on Monday.
The fishing rights at stake represent only a fraction of each countries’ economy. But they have become a major flash point in the U.K.-France relationship following Britain’s departure from the European Union and were one of the biggest issues hanging over the Group of 20 summit in Rome over the weekend.
France accuses the U.K. of wrongly denying French trawlers’ access to British waters, and Macron said the ongoing talks will focus on how the issue might be resolved.
The U.K. has said it would take legal action if France follows through with its threats, without giving details. The French government has also warned it would raise energy costs for the British Channel Islands, which are heavily reliant on electricity from France via an undersea cable.
Protocol Trouble
A Sunday meeting between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Macron in Rome failed to resolve the dispute. Neither side could even agree on what was said.
A Macron aide briefed that the two leaders would work together to find a way to deliver licenses to French boats ahead of the deadline, while Johnson’s spokesman said it was up to Paris to make the first move.
It’s not only the U.K.’s relationship with France that’s being severely tested by Brexit. Johnson’s government is embroiled in a spat with the EU over Northern Ireland and the disruption in the region following the divorce.
Britain’s Brexit minister David Frost issued a scathing attack on the bloc on Monday over its handling of the issue, saying it had behaved “without regard to the huge political, economic, and identity sensitivities involved” in the region.
European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic, who is negotiating with Frost over changes to the Brexit deal concerning Northern Ireland, wrote in a newspaper column that he is concerned the U.K. is seeking confrontation.
Why Is Everyone Talking About Brexit and N. Ireland Again?: Q&A
In a timely reminder of what’s at stake, masked men hijacked a bus in Northern Ireland at gunpoint before setting it on fire on Monday, an attack likely linked to the ongoing Brexit disruption.
Diplomatic Hurdle
The timing of the fishing dispute has been far from ideal for Johnson as he seeks to cajole global leaders into a climate agreement on which he’s staked considerable political capital. The French trade sanctions on the U.K. over fishing would have coincided with the leaders’ final day in Glasgow.
Macron’s government says that 40% of the detailed French requests for licenses to fish in U.K. waters are still pending 10 months after the trade agreement was signed — and that requests from other EU members have all been processed. The U.K. counters that it has granted 98% of license applications from EU vessels since Brexit.
Much now depends on Jersey, which has rejected 55 applications from French trawlers on the basis they didn’t have enough evidence to prove that they fished in Jersey’s waters historically.
The question is whether the Jersey and U.K. governments back down and give more fishing licenses over the next few days. On Sunday, Macron said France had proposed a new methodology for how French trawlers could prove they have access rights, and said France is waiting for the British response.
Officials from Jersey, the U.K., France and the European Commission remained locked in talks late into Monday evening. The Jersey government expects talks to continue, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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