British and French talks to settle fishing row end in stalemate

Talks between the British and French governments to settle a post-Brexit fishing row have ended in stalemate as No 10 said it did not believe Paris would follow through on threats to slow down trade.

The Brexit minister, David Frost, spent about 90 minutes meeting France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, in Paris on Thursday, but despite smiles for the cameras the two sides remained far apart.

Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said: “We don’t believe the French are planning to move forward with the previous threats they’ve made.” Beaune, however, said France wanted to give dialogue a chance, but “the option for retaliatory measures remains open”.

France and Britain are at odds over the rights of French fishers in the six to 12-mile zone around the UK shore, and Jersey and Guernsey. The dispute threatened to tip into a full-blown trade war until the French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for more talks on Monday, holding back on a threat to slow down British imports coming into France.

In order to secure a fishing licence in the six- to 12-mile zone, EU boats, which are mostly French, have to prove they have worked the area in the past. British sources say they have received applications that lacked proof of previous activity. But France denied this claim: “There have been no applications made without evidence of past activity, often very detailed. We are not asking for something for nothing,” Beaune told reporters.

UK sources said there had been no change in the British position and denied French claims of a deliberate move to deny French fishing crews licences.

A UK government spokesperson said Lord Frost and Beaune “discussed the range of difficulties arising from the application of the agreements between the UK and the EU. Both sides set out their positions and concerns.”

After the meeting, Beaune told reporters France had a problem with the British methodology: “We consider that their demands are supplementary to those in the [post Brexit trade] treaty. What we want now is a positive spirit from the British, goodwill … to accept the proofs we have provided. We want to return to the spirit and the letter of the agreement.”

Although Beaune described the talks as positive, he said the British were “again asking for additional requirements and proofs to what is in the treaty”. British sources have said they are open to a range of evidence showing past activity, not only GPS data, which some smaller boats cannot provide. The British say they will accept logbooks and landing records, but that some boats have failed to provide any proof of activity.

The post-Brexit trade deal agreed last Christmas Eve does not specify how fishing crews should prove their previous fishing activity.

Beaune and Frost plan to speak again early next week, probably by phone.

In a written statement to parliament, the government said it has granted nearly 98% of EU licence applications, but this includes all those granted to fish in the UK’s far larger exclusive economic zone, an obligation under the treaty. Under the post-Brexit trade agreement, the UK has to allow EU boats to fish in the large territorial zone, with further agreements to settle sharing-out quotas.

The dispute comes amid an ongoing deadlock over the Northern Ireland protocol. Frost, who is due to meet the EU’s UK relations pointman, the commission’s vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, on Friday, is calling for far-reaching changes to the agreement, including abandoning the oversight of the European court of justice – a red line for the EU.

UK officials have insisted there is no link between the fishing row and the protocol, amid speculation Frost is seeking to use fish as leverage to obtain changes to the Northern Ireland agreement.