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Time is short, but it is still unclear if and when there will be a trade pact between the UK and the EU. Commission chief von der Leyen and Prime Minister Johnson met on Saturday. Now the negotiations are feverish.
By Ralph Sina, ARD-Studio Brussels
Do I try or not? That is the question this week. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke by phone on Saturday. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and his British colleague Lord Frost resumed their interrupted talks on Sunday. And today Barnier will brief the 27 EU ambassadors in Brussels on the situation.
“No contract at any price,” France’s secretary of state for Europe, Clement Beaune, President Emanuel Macron’s top Brexit adviser, repeated on French radio over the weekend. And again he threatened the veto of his country: if there was an agreement, the French government would evaluate and analyze the text. And if the deal is not good and does not satisfy French interests, in particular the interests of French fishermen, France, like any other EU member state, can also veto, Beaune told the Sunday newspaper “Le Journal du Dimanche”. There is no reason to sacrifice French fishermen for the consequences of the Brexit referendum, stressed Macron’s European Secretary of State.
French fishermen fear massive losses
For fishermen in Normandy and Brittany, Brexit is definitely a difficult turning point. Because British Prime Minister Johnson is determined to drastically reduce EU quotas in British territorial waters in accordance with the Brexit motto “Our sea, our fishermen”. The times when French cutters, for example, claimed more than 80 percent of the cod in the English Channel and the proportion of British fishermen was only nine percent, will end as of January 1.
The catch quotas of the EU countries bordering the North Sea should fall dramatically. In what period and to what extent are they still being negotiated. There is talk of a limit of 40 to 60 percent of the previous volume in the trading circles. And if the negotiations fail, the eight affected EU countries, with their around 18,000 fishermen and around 3,500 boats, will no longer collect herring, mackerel, lobster and lobster from British territorial waters. Because herring in particular does not know Brexit and prefers to stay in Britain’s particularly deep 200-mile zone.
Irish push for graduation
40% of their catches are at stake for EU fishermen in the event of a “no deal”. “We need a trade deal. A ‘no deal’ is not acceptable,” Irish MP Barry Andrews told “Channel 4 News.”
After all, one has been very close during the negotiations, says the Irishman. 98 percent of the text of the contract on the future relationship between the European Union is already in force. The Irish government is skeptical of French veto threats. A veto and the ultimate failure of the negotiations would be a political failure at the expense of the workers, MP Andrews stressed.
And yet they move
Brexit will be one of the dominant themes at the EU summit at the end of the week. Johnson now has to show his colors on how many fish the EU will be able to catch in British territorial waters in the future. And to what extent does the UK accept the EU internal market rules and submit to an EU arbitration court in case of dispute.
After all, despite all the veto threats, France is signaling its willingness to engage on the delicate issue of rules in order to please the British by insisting on their sovereignty. Minimal difference in standards is allowed, he said from Paris. But if this measure is exceeded, certain measures should take effect. Such equivalence regulations – that is, the recognition of British standards as equivalent – should also allow the federal government to square the circle: Britain adheres to the EU’s internal market rules and still feels sovereign and self-determined.
Merkel, Macron and Johnson will finally decide this week whether there is a Brexit deal or not.
