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The European Union’s top negotiator has drawn up a billions of pounds list of targets to increase pressure on Lord Frost as the dispute over the trade and security deal comes to a head. The Frenchman has told his close allies about a plan to secure concessions in the bitter dispute over access to British fishing grounds. Details of the maneuvers emerged today as Brexit talks resumed in London ahead of the looming mid-November deadline.
According to sources in Brussels, Barnier will use the promise of lucrative access to the EU market for key UK manufacturing sectors to secure greater access to UK coastal waters for EU fishermen.
Before the talks, he reported in a private meeting that import duties on British-made trucks would cost the UK economy more than 900 million pounds a year.
A source revealed that Barnier has put together a record of the profits made by British companies if the bloc offers the UK a trade deal without tariffs or quotas.
“We have calculated what that would generate in terms of profits for British companies,” he told the allies.
The Brussels bureaucrat explained to his colleagues that he would threaten to block access to the EU for British carriers and airlines if European fishermen are not given “fair access to British waters,” said a person familiar with the discussions.
According to sources, Barnier told the meeting: “I am pitting one against the other. European access to British waters and British access to the single market.”
Barnier has recently come under increasing pressure from EU governments, led by France’s Emmanuel Macron, to stick to the bloc’s uncompromising fishing demands.
EU hardliners want to maintain the same level of access for European ships to Britain’s coastal waters after Brexit.
But Barnier has urged capitals to give him flexibility to find an acceptable “compromise” position for Downing Street.
He said last week that providing UK fleets with a boost to their catch quotas was “key to reaching a deal”.
Downing Street has insisted that it will not back down in the dispute over future access to UK waters.
A government spokesperson said: “Unfortunately, we have not achieved as much as we hoped during this intensive process. We can only move forward if the EU accepts the reality that the UK will have the right to control access to its waters later this year.
“The EU also does not seem to have realized the magnitude of the change in fishing rights they face if there is no agreement.”
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He insisted that the claim to coastal sovereignty was a “point of international law rather than a matter of negotiations.”
He added that the UK and the EU will continue to speak to decide on future fishing opportunities in their waters.
“That is a discussion that will take place annually, but it is the association agreement that sets the ground rules,” he said.
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