Breakthrough on fishing rights as Brexit talks
hang in the balance
Terms on access to UK waters all but finalised, say
Brussels sources, but issue of following EU laws remains an obstacle
Daniel
Boffey in Brussels, Heather Stewart and Lisa O'Carroll
Sun 6 Dec
2020 20.23 GMT
A major
breakthrough has been made in Brexit negotiations on the rights of European
fleets to fish in UK waters, EU sources said last night, leaving a
Franco-German demand that Britain follow EU laws as the final hurdle to a
historic trade and security deal.
Sources in
Brussels said the two sides had all but finalised terms on the level of access
for EU boats to seas within the UK’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone, with a
transition period for phasing in changes understood to be between five and
seven years.
The talks
are now going to the wire on the so-called “ratchet clause” under which the UK
government would have to follow EU environmental, social and labour standards
as they develop over time or face tariffs on British exports.
In an unwelcome development for Boris Johnson, France
and Germany have instructed the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, that
they are united on the need for the UK to face consequences over future
divergence from the EU rulebook as policy changes.
The EU is
proposing that it should have the power to unilaterally hit British exports
with tariffs in the event that Whitehall fails to follow Brussels’ upgrades to
its regulations.
UK sources
said that the negotiations would collapse unless that demand was dropped within
the next 48 hours.
British negotiators
are instead offering to review the deal in an unspecified number of years to
allow the terms of trade to be changed if there is significant divergence.
A UK
government source close to the negotiations said: “There won’t be any agreement
if the EU don’t recognise reality. We’ll only keep talking if there is some
movement and we think there’s any point”.
Boris
Johnson will talk to the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen,
on Monday evening, in what EU sources said was a major moment in the troubled
talks.
The talks
resumed in Brussels on Sunday after Johnson and Von der Leyen agreed there was
reason to believe a deal was still possible during a phone call on Saturday
evening.
The
negotiation had been paused by the two chief negotiators – David Frost and
Barnier – on Friday after they were unable to bridge the gaps between the sides
on rules to ensure fair competition, fishing access in UK waters and a system
for dispute resolution.
“We’re
going to be working very hard to try to get a deal,” Frost told reporters as he
arrived at Brussels-Midi train station on Sunday morning. “We’re going to see
what happens in negotiations today and we will be looking forward to meeting
our European colleagues later this afternoon.”
It is
understood that the call between Johnson and Von der Leyen did not come to any
political fix on the outstanding issues, but that the prime minister
successfully rammed home his political difficulties in selling a deal that
bound Britain to Brussels.
Johnson
will have to sell the deal to the Brexit hardliners of the European Research
Group. On Sunday its deputy chair, David Jones, said the ERG had “huge
confidence in David Frost and the team,” and the remaining sticking points
appeared to be “an internal matter for the EU”.
Sources on
both sides of the negotiation said that the issue of the “ratchet clause” was
now the pressing issue, with EU rights to catches in British fishing waters all
but settled. Neither side were willing to provide details of the agreement
given the sensitivity of the negotiation.
On Sunday
night a government source denied there had been any breakthrough on fisheries,
saying: “Nothing new has been achieved on this today.”
Sources
said there was also good progress on Northern Ireland with an announcement by
the UK-EU joint committee being prepared on easements aimed at “minimising”
checks on food produce going from Great Britain to the region following
protests from businesses including Sainsbury’s.
However,
they said it was unlikely the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol
on 1 January could be delayed as requested by local business and farming
interests, whether there is a deal or not, saying “there is little scope”
around this issue.
In a
complicated game of Brexit chess the NI moves will depend on the language used
by the government about the reintroduction of the internal market bill, on
Monday, and the finance bill, on Wednesday, both of which include incendiary
clauses to disregard the Northern Ireland protocol.
On Sunday,
France’s European affairs minister, Clément Beaune, a close ally of the French
president, Emmanuel Macron, repeated the threat of a French veto amid divisions
among the 27 member states over the necessity of a deal this year, but also
hinted at a compromise on the thorniest issue.
“The
British want access to the single European market without constraints for their
social, environmental or health standards, which is unacceptable,” he said.
“For our part, we are ready to put in place a system in which a divergence of
standards would be allowed but beyond which corrective measures would be taken.
“The
British tell us that this is unfair because other third countries do not have
these same constraints, such as Canada. But we have to realise that the UK will
be our major trading partner outside the EU tomorrow. There is 10 times as much
trade between the EU and UK than with Canada. It is therefore normal to seek
guarantees that they will not engage in unacceptable dumping.”
It is
understood that Frost was made aware of the comments during the talks in the
European commission Berlaymont headquarters. Sources said that the concession
over divergence to some degree was welcome.
Negotiators
are trying to craft provisions that both recognise that the UK is free to make
its own rules but that also protect the single market from goods produced with
a lower cost base due to differences in regulations.
Downing
Street fears that allowing the EU to unilaterally put tariffs on British goods
where there is divergence will put an inappropriate onus on policymakers in
Whitehall to follow Brussels’ lead.
The UK has
also yet to agree to non-regression over current standards because of
differences about the definition of the “common high standards” and means of
correction where an agreement is breached.
Efforts are
under way to find a compromise but divisions have emerged between countries
such as Germany and Ireland, who believe it is vital to sign a deal this year,
and the Élysée Palace.
Macron is
of the opinion that it might be better to restart talks in 2021 than rush into
a hasty agreement that will set European businesses back in decades to come.
“The
British tell us that they would only need 24 hours to do this [ratify], but we
must also think about the time that will be needed to explain this agreement to
our companies,” Beaune said. “So in the coming days, we will have to decide
either to continue to negotiate or go ahead with no deal. Because if this is
the case, it is better to know now than at Christmas.”
“Within the
EU27 there are different sensitivities – it would be naive to deny it,” he
added. “We will not give in to time pressure. As for the [German] chancellor
[Angela Merkel], she wants a deal, but she also defends our demands – and she
knows the European market well enough to guess how the German economy would
suffer from a bad deal.”
EU sources
said Germany had in the past 24 hours agreed to support France’s position on
fair competition, after Paris’s stance on fishing access was softened.
The UK
government’s plans to table legislation on Tuesday that would again break
international law by again overriding clauses in the withdrawal agreement on
tariffs on goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is seen as a
natural deadline for a deal in Brussels.
Ireland’s
foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, said the trade and security deal
running to more than 600 pages of legal text was “97% or 98%” adding that “we
are more likely to get a deal than not”.
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