The government of Jersey has issued almost 50 additional licences to French boats to fish in its waters, in an apparent effort to stave off threats of sanctions from Paris.
The 49 temporary permits issued today come on top of 66 permanent licences awarded last week, bringing to 162 the total number of French vessels allowed to fish in the area post-Brexit.
However, it is unclear whether the move - agreed last week at a meeting with officials from France, Jersey, the UK and European Commission - will be enough to stop the imposition of measures threatened by Paris if the situation is not resolved to its satisfaction by midnight tonight.
The announcement came as foreign secretary Liz Truss said that France had 48 hours to end the dispute or face possible legal action from the UK.
The new licences are the most visible outcome of efforts to prevent a Brexit meltdown in Anglo-French relations just as Boris Johnson is trying to bring world leaders together at the Cop26 climate change summit in Glasgow.
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They fall only slightly short of the total 169 licences requested by Paris. The UK last week also granted 12 additional authorisations within the limit of 6 to 12 nautical miles of its coasts — less than a quarter of the 87 requested by France.
Retaliatory measures threatened by Paris if the UK does not halt what it regards as unfair treatment of its fishermen could involve blocking access to French ports for UK boats, tightening controls on British exports or even cutting off electricity supplies to the Channel Islands.
Ms Truss took to the airwaves first thing on Monday to blast “completely unreasonable threats” to the fishing industry and threatened to sue France under the terms of the post-Brexit trade deal.
“They need to withdraw those threats, or else we will use the mechanisms of our trade agreement with the EU to take action,” she said.
Ms Truss said the UK would use the dispute resolution mechanism in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement to seek “compensatory measures” against Emmanuel Macron’s government. She did not elaborate on how she believed the warnings from France breached the agreement.
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“That is what we will do if the French don’t back down,” she added. “Stop threatening UK fishing vessels, stop threatening the Channel ports and accept we are entirely within our rights to allocate the fishing licences in line with the trade agreement.”
Downing Street said that legal action by the UK would not be automatically triggered by the passing of France’s deadline, but would be dependent on whether Paris actually takes action which breaches the TCA.
A No 10 spokesperson stressed that the deadline was a matter for the French authorities, as it had been set unilaterally by Paris.
“If the French carry out these threats, we will look at our options,” said the spokesperson. “The TCA is clear in terms of what it entails.”
There are currently no plans for Mr Johnson to speak with Mr Macron in Glasgow, following the two leaders’ conversation at the G20 summit in Rome on Sunday.
In a statement, the Jersey authorities said that the 49 new temporary licences will be valid until 31 January, allowing French vessels to continue fishing while they provide the further data required to secure a permanent right of access.
They said: “Jersey remains open to receiving further data for vessels that currently have no licence, and new applications can be submitted at any time. “We will continue to work closely with French authorities, the UK and the EU Commission – in accordance with the TCA – to ensure that vessels which are entitled to a licence are able to receive one and continue fishing in Jersey’s territorial waters in accordance with their historic track record.”
Under the terms of the TCA, French boats must be able to show that they have fished in the relevant UK waters for at least one day a year for the past four years to obtain a licence granting them access after Brexit.
The UK government says that it has given licences to 98 per cent of all EU vessels seeking access to UK waters - nearly 1,800 in total. But the rate of approvals has been far lower for the areas around the Channel Islands.
The UK maintains the rejected applications that sparked the row did not have enough supporting evidence to show the boats had a history of fishing in Britain’s or Jersey’s waters.
Dimitri Rogoff, who heads the regional fishing committee on the French coast near Jersey, said French crews have been providing paperwork for 10 months and don’t understand why some boats won permits and others have not.He said he did not understand why Britain is making a big deal over “20 or 30 boats,” and that he hoped that the French government’s threats could “incite our British friends to be a bit more conciliatory”.