When such rows blow up, it is tempting to think that there must be a dollop of blame on both sides. But not this time
Souce - Daily Telegraph - 31/10/21
You know what? Remainers were right. They always said that Brexit would lead to an upsurge in populism and demagoguery that would undermine international relations, and it has. But it has happened in France, not the UK.
The fisheries row follows a familiar pattern, with French ministers blustering and threatening while their British counterparts urge both sides to follow the rules. We saw the same thing over Aukus, over illegal migration and over vaccines. In each case, France threw a tantrum while the UK tried to behave like an adult.
Over the past week, British ministers have been appealing both to their French counterparts and to the EU (which controls France’s fisheries agreements) to stick to the deal that the two sides signed on 30 December, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).
French ministers, by contrast, have been threatening all manner of semi-legal and illegal measures, from a go-slow on checks at the Channel ports to a ban on British vessels landing their catches in France.
France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, speaking as one might speak of Iran or North Korea, says that Britain understands “only force”.
“Ce n’est pas la guerre, c’est un combat,” adds his colleague, the fisheries minister, Annick Girardin, as if making some sort of concession. But picking fights that stop short of outright war is hardly the act of a friend.
Make no mistake, France is crossing the road to have a fight with us. When such rows blow up, it is tempting to think that there must be a dollop of blame on both sides. But not this time.
Let’s recall the sequence of events. Under the Common Fisheries Policy, fish stocks were treated as a “common resource” to which every EU state had “equal access” according to a quota system worked out in Brussels. Jersey was not in the EU, but its foreign policy was run by the UK, and it was covered by a supplementary treaty, the Granville Bay Agreement.
When Britain left the EU, it resumed control of its territorial waters, out to 200 miles or the median line, as laid down by marine law. In theory, it could have reserved an exclusive right to fish in those waters for its own boats, but almost no country does that.
Britain secured a larger quota for its skippers – a phased increase of some 25 per cent – but also agreed to recognise the rights of vessels that had historically fished in its waters, some going back to pre-EEC days.
Part of the treaty dealt with waters between six and 12 miles from the coast. Here, Britain and the EU agreed to grant access to boats which could demonstrate an existing presence.
In practice, that part of the deal applied only one way, because almost no UK vessels fish on the other side of the Channel. None the less, Britain interpreted the rules generously, defining “presence” as having fished at least one day a year over four years.
Both sides – Britain and the Channel Islands on the one hand and the EU and its coastal states on the other – understood what was being signed. The deal was intended to cap foreign access to British waters at its existing level, a common enough concept in fisheries agreements, resting on what is known as a “reference period”.
The UK and the Channel Islands have been immensely accommodating within the terms of that deal, admitting any reasonable evidence of past access to their waters, even offering their own electronic records, and granting interim licences to skippers who struggled to complete the paperwork in time.
Jersey has licensed more than 160 EU vessels, almost all of them French. But a further 50 or so have not been able to provide any evidence of a presence in Jersey waters – almost certainly because they have not fished there. On any conceivable interpretation, the terms of the TCA exclude them.
In this sense, France’s dispute is not so much with the UK as with the EU, which signed the treaty on its behalf – a point made acidly by Marine Le Pen. The EU has not disputed Britain’s contention that it is acting within the letter and spirit of the TCA.
The question is whether, in the last resort, Brussels will uphold the law, or whether, like an unreformed trade union, it will take a “my member right or wrong” approach.
You might think, given that it is currently suing Poland for an alleged refusal to uphold the EU legal order, that it would prioritise the rule of law. France, after all, is being quite open in its threat to flout international agreements.
There are, for example, rules governing customs and borders procedures that allow for increased checks only as a proportionate response to an identified threat. The EU, as the signatory and guarantor of the TCA, has a responsibility to enforce it.
But legality is usually trumped by what in Brussels is called “solidarity”. France’s prime minister has written to ask the European Commission for support, not on grounds that France is in the right, but because it must show that “leaving the Union is more damaging than remaining in it”.
My guess is that the EU will be receptive to that argument. In the 21 years that I was an MEP, I witnessed dozens of spats between Greece and Turkey.
Sometimes Greece had the better claim and sometimes Turkey had, but Eurocrats were never much interested in the rights and wrongs. It was Athens, not Ankara, that had the power to make their life awkward, so they invariably backed Greece, however petulant or unreasonable its position, to the point where Turkey lost interest in the Western alliance and turned its face eastwards.
Is that our future? To be Turkey to France’s Greece? To be drawn into one needless spat after another until we abandon our strategic partnership with Europe? Or is there a chance that things will settle down after the French election?
While we can’t say for sure, the omens are not encouraging. It is true that Macron can be more Anglophobic in his language than his Right-wing rivals. He knows that foreign quarrels play well at home. The issue itself is secondary – Astrazeneca, the Northern Ireland Protocol, an energy blockade, bah – what really matters is being seen to bash the old foe.
Macron, who recently looked unelectable, is now leading the polls in any putative presidential run-off. Why should his tactics change if he wins?
The most depressing aspect of the row – though, after five years of similar antics, hardly a surprising one – is the number of British commentators who have had their heads so turned by Brexit that they automatically back any EU state against their own.
This requires some painful intellectual contortions. For example, the demand that Britain reward unprovoked blackmail is framed as a call for “maturity” or “de-escalation”. France’s blatant threats to act outside the law are excused on grounds that Britain has supposedly done the same thing over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
(In fact, there is no comparison between a legal measure – Article 16 is expressly part of the Protocol, and the EU was quite ready to trigger it – and openly ignoring the rules; but, even so, Britain has sought a negotiated settlement rather than invoking the clause.)
As for the claim that all this is happening because of Brexit, it is true – but not in the way that Europhiles mean. French blockades were a frequent occurrence when we were in the EU. As an MEP representing Kent, I would regularly pursue compensation claims on behalf of hauliers and other afflicted businesses – usually, I am sorry to report, without success.
But there is a sense in which this row was indeed prompted by Brexit. Britain has, as promised, taken back its territorial waters. The EU, rather than face a no-deal outcome that would have resulted in its total exclusion from those waters, signed a treaty in which it agreed to a phased reduction in its share. France does not like the consequences and so pretends to be shocked – shocked – by what the treaty means in practice.
Britain cannot begin its relationship as an independent neighbour of the EU by giving in to patently illegal threats. Someone must stand up for a law-based international order.
Boris Johnson should take inspiration from his predecessor Lord Palmerston, the priapic patriot who dominated our mid-nineteenth century foreign policy. When his French counterpart put it to him that the English had no word equivalent to “sensibilité”, the great Whig replied, “Yes we have – humbug!”
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