The French Minister for the Sea, Annick Girardin, announced on Thursday 18 November, during the ‘Assises de la pêche’ fisheries conference, that the government is preparing “a fleet exit plan” for French vessels whose licences in British waters will not be renewed.
The EU and the UK are still negotiating the terms of post-Brexit fishing licences in UK waters. Negotiations seem to be at a standstill, and France deplores the insufficient number of licences granted by the UK (see EUROPE 12831/14).
Mrs Girardin said that in Guernsey, “we should have more than 40 definitive licences by early December. This is a very good result”.
In the 6-12 mile zone, “the area in which the British wanted to exclude us, we have at this stage obtained 104 definitive licences. This result is not yet satisfactory. We are still 54 licences short, including 40 for replacement vessels”, said the French minister.
In Jersey, 116 definitive licences were obtained by France. France requests the “perpetuation of the 46 provisional licences. And we are continuing to fight for the 13 licences that we consider to be priorities”, added Mrs Girardin.
She also said that she had announced measures to step up controls on UK vessels to “press for the missing licences”.
“I will not go any further at this stage, because we wanted to give more time to the negotiations conducted by the European Commission”, the minister said, referring to the retaliatory measures announced by France that have not yet been applied.
“Without prejudging the outcome of the negotiations, I have asked my departments to propose, in conjunction with the professionals, an estimate of the fleet exit plans”. At least €40 million are earmarked for this ‘ship scrapping’ aid.
Link to the speech: https://bit.ly/3DwnKDp (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)