Brexit deal to be pored over by EU diplomats on
Christmas Day
Michel Barnier to update ambassadors as Boris Johnson
accused of sacrificing UK fishing industry
Rajeev Syal
Fri 25 Dec
2020 11.23 GMT
European
Union ambassadors are convening on Christmas Day to assess the free-trade deal
the bloc struck with the UK following nine months of negotiations.
The EU’s
chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, will update the diplomats on the agreement,
reached after months of fraught talks on fishing rights and business rules.
Boris
Johnson has hailed the deal as a “new beginning” for the UK. But a major
fishing organisation has accused the prime minister of sacrificing the industry
to reach an agreement as the deadline for leaving EU trading rules loomed.
The prime
minister is still waiting to hear the verdict of Eurosceptic MPs within his own
party, some of whom have privately voiced concerns that the deal did not go far
enough.
The Labour
leader, Keir Starmer, said it was a “thin agreement” but that his party would
back it as the only alternative to no deal, meaning it should win approval in
the Commons.
After the
deal was announced on Thursday, EU nations said they supported the outcome. It
is widely expected that they will unanimously back the agreement, a
prerequisite for its legal approval.
The
European parliament needs to ratify the deal but it is unlikely to do so until
the new year, meaning its application will formally be provisional until then.
MPs and
peers will be called back to Westminster on 30 December to vote on the deal.
Sebastian
Fischer, a spokesman for the German presidency of the Council of the EU, joked
that he was looking forward to the diplomats’ meeting “because nothing is more
fun than to celebrate Christmas among socially distanced colleagues”.
“Thank you
Brexit,” he added.
The French
Europe minister, Clément Beaune, said it was a “good agreement” and stressed
the EU had not accepted a deal “at all costs”.
He told the
broadcaster Europe 1 “we needed an agreement less than the British” as “for
them, it was a vital need”.
“There is
no country in the world that will be subject to as many export rules to us as
the UK,” he said.
A summary
of the document has been published by the government. The full document, which
is about 1,500 pages, is supposed to be published soon.
Johnson
used his Christmas message to sell the deal to a public weary of Brexit after
years of acrimonious wrangling since the 2016 referendum.
Clutching a
sheaf of papers he said: “I have a small present for anyone who may be looking
for something to read in that sleepy post-Christmas lunch moment, and here it
is, tidings, glad tidings of great joy, because this is a deal.
“A deal to
give certainty to business, travellers and all investors in our country from
January 1. A deal with our friends and partners in the EU.”
The prime
minister has claimed the deal meets the goals set out during the 2016 campaign
to “take back control”.
This
includes an increase in the share of fish in British waters that the UK can
catch, rising from about half now to two-thirds by the end of the
five-and-a-half-year transition.
At a
Downing Street press conference on Christmas Eve, Johnson said “as a result of
this deal [we will] be able to catch and eat quite prodigious quantities of
extra fish”, with £100m for the UK fishing industry to modernise and expand.
Fishing
organisations have disagreed with Johnson’s assessment. Barrie Deas, chief
executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said there
would be “frustration and anger” across the industry. “In the end it was clear
that Boris Johnson wanted an overall trade deal and was willing to sacrifice
fishing,” he told PA news agency.
French
politicians have expressed concern that the deal postpones wrangles over
fishing rights, instead of solving them.
Boulogne-sur-Mer’s
mayor, Frédéric Cuvillier, said the agreement left much obscured.
“Relief for
our fishermen, but what will be the impact on stocks? Who, for example, will be
handling the controls? And over what time?” he told Europe 1 radio. “The only
certainty today is that we need to find, during the transition period, more
deals within the deal.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário