Wednesday 6 October 2021

Fish wars spark into life again

 The Gruan is particularly keen on this story and has reported it for a few days running:

France threatens to cut UK and Jersey energy supply in fishing row

The EU could hit Britain and Jersey’s energy supply over the UK’s failure to provide sufficient fishing licences to French fishers, France’s EU affairs minister has said. ...Last week a third of French boats applying to fish in Jersey’s waters were turned down by the island’s government. The previous week the UK government provided only 12 of 47 French vessels with permits for its coastal waters. The UK and Jersey authorities have said the vessels that had been turned down had failed to provide evidence of operating in the relevant waters.

Under the post-Brexit trade and cooperation agreement struck on Christmas Eve, in case of a dispute with Jersey the EU can take unilateral measures “proportionate to the alleged failure by the respondent party and the economic and societal impact thereof”.

That term 'proportionate' might be interesting.

Unilateral measures affecting the energy supply to the rest of the UK would also theoretically be possible. But France would need to gain the consent of other member states in both cases and the action would need to be proportionate, as the UK would have the right to take the EU to arbitration after any such move.

Note the GHRaun's careful usage of the preferred term 'fishers'.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment