Not happy. The Minister Delegate for Europe, Jean-Noël Barrot, called on the European Commission to examine the “potentially discriminatory” nature of the United Kingdom’s fishing ban in 13 marine protected areas off the French coast.
He spoke of possible “retaliatory measures” after this decision which worries French fishermen, during a visit on Friday to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, in Pas-de-Calais. This ban decided by the British Marine Management Organization, intended to “protect marine habitats and species”, came into force on March 22.
Request for “retaliatory measures”
“France supports its fishermen and resists these arbitrary decisions by the United Kingdom to close marine protected areas”, it is a question of “justice”, “food sovereignty” and “identity”, said the minister following a round table with the stakeholders concerned.
He assured that French leaders were “mobilized in Brussels” to enforce the cooperation and trade agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom, and that the European Commission “can take retaliatory measures” in the event of of violation.
Customs duties on British imports?
The next step is to build a “coalition” with the countries concerned to “obtain a thorough examination of the potentially discriminatory nature of these measures”. Among the possible retaliations, the minister cited “customs duties on British imports”, provided for in the cooperation agreement. With Brexit, “we are moving from a world in which we cooperate peacefully to a world in which there is a trade war,” warned Jean-Noël Barrot.
The LR president of the Hauts-de-France region Xavier Bertrand denounced on March 21 the United Kingdom’s ban on fishing in these thirteen British marine protected areas. This ban “poses a considerable economic threat to the entire fishing industry which is today fighting for its survival,” said the President of the Region in a letter to the European Commissioner responsible for the Environment, Oceans and Sustainable Development. fishing, Virginijus Sinkevicius.