Environment secretary George Eustice has said that the UK could respond in kind if France carried through with its threats to stop British boats from landing in its ports.
The row is part of a wider dispute over post-Brexit fishing rights, with the French threatening to ban British boats if a disagreement over licences is not resolved by November 2.
Eustice has said that French officials were guilty of using “inflammatory” language in their approach, after the French Europe minister Clément Beaune claimed that the only language Britain understands is “the language of force”.
The environment secretary added that he would contact the European Commission over the dispute, while the French ambassador to the UK, Catherine Colonna, has today been called in for talks with ministers.
The row escalated after a British trawler owned by Scottish company Macduff Shellfish was seized by French officials and another boat was fined after checks were carried out near Le Havre this week.
French authorities claimed that Macduff Shellfish’s detained boat did not have a licence, which both the company and the UK government denies.
The captain of the seized Cornelius Gert Jan will face a court session in August 2022 according to French authorities, while Eustice told the BBC that the vessel had been given a licence at the start of 2021 and the government was looking to ascertain why it had been omitted from the list of licensed boats handed to the EU.
The episode is the latest in a line of disagreements over fishing rights, after September saw the French incensed by a UK decision to deny fishing licences to a number of French boats wanting access to British waters.
The French claimed at the time that the UK was acting in breach of the Brexit deal and threatened to block British vessels from landing in French ports, tighten checks on UK boats and lorries, and cut the electricity supply to the crown dependency of Jersey in response.
Clarifying the UK's position, the environment secretary said that the UK denied licences to a small number of French vessels that did not qualify on the grounds that they have never had a history of accessing waters around Jersey before Brexit.
Meanwhile, the government of the Bailiwick of Jersey has said that it is “extremely disappointed” by the French threat.
After a meeting of French, British and EU officials on Wednesday, 162 more French boats were handed licences to fish in Jersey’s waters following a British concession. These licences are effective from today [October 29].
But UK ministers are now said to be considering a range of retaliatory options after convening on Thursday over the seizing of the Cornelius Gert Jan.
Eustice told reporters that the UK door was “open” and the government would wait to see what the French government would do on November 2, after which point the UK will “reserve the right to respond in a proportionate way”.
“For now, we are not going to respond in the way that France has,” he said.
“We're going to raise this with the [European] Commission and we're going to raise it through diplomatic channels with the French ambassador, but we'll reserve our right to do more things if France continue to press ahead with these threats.”
The environment secretary hinted that the French government could be politicising checks on British vessels, referencing the upcoming election in the country.
Bruno Bonnell, a French MP from incumbent president Emmanual Macron’s En Marche party, said that he was optimistic both parties would “sit down and find a way” to end the dispute before November 2.
Bonnell said: “There is a time for flexing muscles and putting your trump cards on the table and there are times for negotiations. The next step is negotiations.”
Meanwhile, the UK's Brexit minister Lord Frost is to meet with EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic on Friday for talks over the state of Northern Ireland Protocol negotiations.
The UK stands by its position that the Protocol in its current form "applies too much law" in Northern Ireland and creates barriers to trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The UK has said that major changes to the operation and governance of the Protocol are required, including the removal of the European Court of Justice as a settlement force for any dispute over the Protocol.
The EU has proposed a package of measures which would reduce the practical impact of the Protocol, with EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen saying that the bloc had already shown flexibility over the issue.
Photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash
