PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday refrained from implementing a threat to disrupt trade with Britain in a standoff over post Brexit fishing rights as talks to defuse the latest row continued in Brussels.
France had threatened to ban British boats from unloading their catches at French ports and to subject all British imports to inspections, effectively holding them up, from midnight on Monday.
But on Monday evening Macron said France would allow more time for negotiations over the exclusion of dozens of French fishing boats from the territorial waters of the UK and Channel Islands.
“It’s not while we’re negotiating that we’re going to impose sanctions,” the French leader said on the sidelines of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, in remarks welcomed by the British government.
The talks between France, Britain and the EU are set to continue through the week, with Brexit minister David Frost due to meet France’s Europe Minister Clement Beaune in Paris on Thursday.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission said Monday’s talks in Brussels had allowed to chart “the way forward on several aspects” and that the discussions would resume on Tuesday and continue “later in the week”.
“I’m all for giving it an extra 48 hours but we’ll have to be very tough indeed with the British at that point,” conservative presidential hopeful Xavier Bertrand, who is hoping to challenge Macron in the election, told France 2 television.
His sentiments were echoed by a leading Socialist, Patrick Kanner.
“France is right to flex its muscles but when you do so sometimes you have to go all the way,” the senator told France Info radio.
Under the post-Brexit deal agreed by Britain and the EU, European fishing vessels can continue to ply the UK’s and Channel Island’s waters if they can prove they operated there in the past.
But dozens of French boats have had their applications for licences to fish waters between six and 12 miles from the UK’s and Jersey’s shores rejected.
Britain and Jersey claim they failed to provide sufficient documentation and threatened to sue France if it disrupts trade flows.
“If somebody behaves unfairly in a trade deal you’re entitled to take action against them and seek some compensatory measures,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told Sky News on Sunday.
“That is what we will do if the French don’t back down.”
But in a later statement the UK government signalled it was ready to cede some ground.
“As we have said consistently, we are ready to continue intensive discussions on fisheries, including considering any new evidence to support the remaining license applications,” a spokesperson said.
The feud has already seen a British trawler detained in a French port and France’s ambassador in London summoned to the Foreign Office for the type of rebuke usually reserved for hostile states.
