Paris claims, within eight days, “concrete signals on the issue of licenses” granted, in some British waters, by London to the French fishermen.
Le Monde with AFP
“replica”, even “retortion”: the tone rises, French side, in the file of licenses granted sparingly by the United Kingdom to the French fishermen.
“By about eight days, we will announce response, replica, retaliation measures, national or European, if we do not have concrete British signals on the issue of licenses”, Senate said the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, Wednesday, October 13 evening.
In particular, France threatens to reduce its electricity deliveries to Jersey, and take action in the financial services or research sector.
“We have been very patient, too patients (…) The British do not want to give a number of licenses not because they lack information but because they made this political choice”, hammered The Secretary of State.
200 licenses granted on 244
The post-Brexit agreement, concluded in extremis at the end of last year between London and Brussels, provides that European fishermen can continue to work in some British waters provided that a license, granted. They can prove that they were forever there. But French and British compete with the nature and extent of the proof to be provided.
In the fishing grounds still disputed (Zone of 6-12 miles from the British coasts and Channel Islands), London and Jersey have thus granted a total of more than 200 final licenses, while Paris reclaims it yet 244 .
“This is not a French problem (…) It is a European problem,” said Clement Beaune by recalling that Belgium and Ireland were also concerned. “We mobilize our European partners,” he added.
Eleven countries, including France, which appealed to a European front against London after the British decisions on fishing licenses, signed on Monday a Joint Declaration criticizing the United Kingdom’s responses in this file.