What happens if UK takes legal action over post-Brexit fishing row with France?
The French government has stepped back from a threat to impose disruptive port checks on lorries and boats after the UK threatened to take legal action in a row over post-Brexit fishing licences.
Key talks between the two sides will take place later this week aimed at resolving the disagreement, but the risk of further escalation remains.
Sky News examines what is behind the row between the UK and France and what measures London could take if the impasse rumbles on.
What is the dispute about?
Under the terms of the Brexit trade deal, which came into force on 1 January, EU access to UK waters and UK access to EU waters is now managed through a licensing system for fishing vessels.
The current row erupted after the UK authorities refused to give licences to some French fishing vessels to operate in UK waters because they believed they did not meet the requirements.
According to the French government, the UK has only issued half the fishing licences that Paris believes it is entitled to.
Environment Secretary George Eustice told Sky News last week that the UK has issued post-Brexit licences to 1,700 vessels, including 750 French fishing boats, which amounts to 98% of applicants.
But the row deepened when the Cornelis Gert Jan scallop trawler was detained by French authorities last Thursday near the port of Le Havre.
The owners of the British vessel denied French claims that it did not have the correct licence to fish in French waters and said the Cornelis was being used as a “pawn” in the wider UK-France fishing dispute.
France initially said that if the UK did not grant more licences for its fishing vessels it would, from Tuesday, block its ports, carry out security checks on British vessels, reinforce controls of lorries to and from the UK, reinforce customs and hygiene controls, and raise tariffs.
However, Paris has stepped back from introducing these measures.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
France postpones sanctions over fishing row
Downing Street says talks will take place with France on Wednesday about the situation, as well as other “issues important to the UK-EU relationship, including the Northern Ireland Protocol”.
What are dispute resolution measures?
It is against this backdrop that the UK has threatened to take legal action.
The prospect was raised by Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week and repeated by the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in a Sky News interview on Monday.
The foreign secretary set a 48-hour deadline for the fishing dispute to be resolved, although it’s not clear if that deadline still stands in light of recent moves from Paris.
If legal action were to be taken, this would involve the UK triggering the dispute resolution measures contained in the Brexit trade deal, officially known as the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).
The measures are designed to be used when one side feels that the other is in breach of the TCA.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
PM ‘worried’ that treaty may have been broken on fishing
Initially, this would mean a 30-day period of consultation between the two sides which can be extended if both parties agree.
The aim of this first step is to resolve any disagreement through dialogue.
But if a solution cannot be found, the complainant can progress things further and ask for an independent arbitration tribunal to be set up.
This would be made up of three members: one nominated by the UK, one put forward by the EU and a jointly-agreed chair.
The tribunal would then rule within 130 days of being set up, although an interim report would be issued earlier.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Minister: French reaction ‘unacceptable’
One side can ask for this timeline to be sped up, which would see it cut in half.
Tribunal rulings are legally binding and if a side is found to have breached the agreement they have 30 days to set out how they will comply.
Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, said of the process: “In terms of the legal mechanisms we are very much talking about a process here that could drag on for a while.”
What happens if one side does not comply?
The other party can ask for compensation or suspend certain obligations contained in the agreement in areas like trade, aviation, road transport and fisheries.
The tribunal can be asked to rule on whether the suspension is appropriate, while the suspension should be rescinded if the other side then decides to follow its ruling.
There are also specific steps that one side can take in relation to fishing.
What measures can be taken on fishing?
One side could decide to entirely suspend access to its waters and scrap the preferential tariff agreement that applies to fishery products.
Again, an arbitration tribunal could end up getting involved, with it ruling if the measure is a proportionate response.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Brexit: Fishermen frustrated by fishing row
The UK, or indeed France, could choose to go further and apply tariffs on fisheries and non-fisheries products or even suspend elements of the TCA relating to trade and road transport.
Either side can also decide to bin the agreement on fisheries with a notice period of nine months.
What would the impact be on UK-EU relations long-term?
According to Sam Lowe: “If the UK feels the diplomatic route has been exhausted, proceeding with dispute resolution within the confines of the TCA is the proper way to go about things.
“At least in the TCA there are rules, processes to be followed; much better than spilling out into an unconstrained trade war with both the EU and UK free to do whatever they want.”
However, he warned that a simmering dispute could have a wider impact, adding: “These disputes do have political ramifications: they chip away at the good will necessary to reach a compromise on other outstanding issues such as Northern Ireland.”
Are the dispute resolution mechanisms different when it comes to Northern Ireland?
Yes.
The UK and EU are currently locked in talks over potential changes to the protocol, which is designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The protocol is part of the withdrawal agreement between the two sides and is separate from the TCA.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Do we need a new Northern Ireland Protocol?
If these talks break down or do not prove fruitful, either side has the option of activating Article 16 of the protocol.
This states that if the protocol is causing “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist”, or leading to a “diversion of trade” then either the UK or EU can introduce “appropriate safeguard measures” to tackle the problems.
Brussels at one stage proposed using Article 16 to stop COVID vaccine exports from the EU moving to Great Britain from Northern Ireland, but stepped back from this after a backlash.
Opponents of the protocol in Northern Ireland have been calling on the UK government to invoke Article 16 to stop checks and controls on goods.
Politics
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.
Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.
Labour’s decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners.
But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.
The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.
Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.
Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.
She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.
“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”
Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.
“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”
Pic: AP
A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.
Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.
Read more:
UK and US trade deal will save thousands of UK jobs – Starmer
Starmer faces rebellion from Labour MPs over welfare reforms
One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.
“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.
“There is a lack of vision from this government.”
Another added: “Everyone was furious.”
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.
A man from the US state of Virginia will spend over three decades behind bars after being convicted of sending crypto to the terrorist organization commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Federal Judge David Novak sentenced Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa to 30 years and four months in prison on May 7 for sending over $185,000 to the Islamic State, the Department of Justice said on May 8.
Prosecutors said that from around October 2019 until October 2022, the 35-year-old Chhipa collected and sent money to female Islamic State members in Syria, which helped them escape prison camps and funded fighting.
The Justice Department said Chhipa would raise funds for the United Nations-designated terror organization through social media — receiving money online, or traveling hundreds of miles to accept donations in person.
He’d convert the money into crypto and send it to Turkey for it to be smuggled to Islamic State members across the border in Syria, prosecutors said.
A federal jury convicted Chhipa in December, finding him guilty on a charge of conspiracy to provide support to a terrorist organization and four charges of providing and attempting to provide support to a terrorist organization.
“This defendant directly financed ISIS in its efforts to commit vile terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens in America and abroad,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This severe sentence illustrates that if you fund terrorism, we will prosecute you and put you behind bars for decades.”
Chhipa tried to flee US during FBI probe
Prosecutors said that during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into Chhipa, he tried to flee the country to escape prosecution and tried to hide his tracks through a series of actions seemingly aimed at confusing authorities.
According to a motion for detention filed in August, FBI agents searched Chhipa’s house on Aug. 2, 2019, and that night Chhipa drove to a bank, withdrew $1,800 from an ATM, and then went to a Taco Bell, where he paid a stranger for a ride to a relative’s house. The relative then drove him to a grocery store.
Related: US Treasury sanctions Myanmar militia group for alleged crypto scams
Three days later, prosecutors said Chhipa “purchased a series of bus tickets using variations and/or misspelling of his name and recently created email accounts.”
He then travelled from Virginia to Mexico and onto Guatemala. He then bought tickets to fly from Guatemala to Panama, then onto Germany, and then to Egypt, but an Interpol Blue Notice was issued, and he was returned to the US.
Magazine: Terrorism and the Israel-Gaza war have been weaponized to destroy crypto
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway