The French Minister of the Sea Annick Girardin announced this Thursday to prepare a “fleet exit plan” to compensate the French ships which would not obtain in fine no post-Brexit fishing license to enter UK waters. “Without prejudging the outcome of the negotiations, I asked the DPMA (Fisheries Department) to offer me, in relation with the professionals, an estimate of the fleet exit plans that I could finance”, she said. declared during an intervention at the fishing conference organized in Saint-Pol-de-Léon (Finistère). She specified that “an envelope of 40 to 60 million euros” could “be put on the table”.
Paris and London are in conflict over fishing licenses granted to Europeans after Brexit. In early October, France threatened to ban British fishing vessels from unloading their cargo in French ports and to tighten customs controls on all trucks if London did not grant more licenses to French fishermen. She had lifted the ultimatum while waiting for the Parisian meeting.
“We have a problem with the methodology adopted on the British side for the issuance of these licenses, with a certain number of criteria which are additional requirements compared to the agreement which was concluded and which pose a great difficulty to us”, in particular relieved Secretary of State Clément Beaune. “Both sides have expressed their positions and concerns,” said a spokesman for the British government.
The island of Jersey’s unwillingness to cooperate
In the process, the French Minister of the Sea Annick Girardin denounced the lack of will to cooperate of the Anglo-Norman island of Jersey, within the framework of the difficult negotiations underway on the attribution of post-Brexit fishing licenses. in UK waters.
“It is definitely obvious that Jersey does not respect the Brexit agreement, worse, it shows a unwillingness to cooperate with us,” said the minister in an intervention at the fishing conference organized in Saint-Pol-de-Léon (Finistère). She recalled that 46 authorization requests were still unanswered and that 52 licenses had expired on October 31, “including 13 priority ones, depriving these fishermen of access to Jersey waters”.