France to be tough with UK over fishing
France has seized a British trawler fishing in its territorial waters without a licence and issued a verbal warning to a second vessel, amid a bitter row between the neighbours over access to fishing grounds after Brexit.
Furious that Britain has refused to grant its fishermen the full number of licences to operate inside British waters that France says is warranted, Paris announced on Wednesday retaliatory measures if there was no progress in talks.
From November 2, Paris said, it would impose extra customs checks on British goods entering France, raising the prospect of more economic pain ahead of Christmas for Britain, which is battling labour shortages and spiralling energy prices.
The government of President Emmanuel Macron is also reviewing a second volley of sanctions and does not exclude a review of its exports of electricity to Britain.
"It's not war, but it is a fight," France's Seas Minister Annick Girardin told RTL radio.
French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune said France would now use the language of force, as that appeared to be all Britain understood.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the detained trawler.
Earlier, Britain said France's planned acts of retaliation would be met with an appropriate and calibrated response.
"France's threats are disappointing and disproportionate and not what we would expect from a close ally and partner," a British government spokesman said.
French maritime gendarmes made multiple checks on fishing vessels off the northern French port of Le Havre overnight, the Maritime Ministry said, as France steps up surveillance during negotiations.
The seized trawler, now under the control of French judicial authorities, had been rerouted to Le Havre under a maritime police escort and was tied up at on the port's quayside.
The vessel's captain could face criminal charges, with his catch confiscated, the ministry added.
Britain has said it issued fishing licences to vessels able to show a track record of operating in its waters in the years prior to its withdrawal from the European Union on January 31, 2020.
Negotiations between Britain and the European Commission over the affair have continued this week.
French patience has worn thin over what officials call Britain's failure to honour its word since Brexit, citing fishing and a demand to renegotiate the Northern Ireland protocol that aims to maintain the integrity of the EU single market.
Additional customs checks on goods travelling between Britain and the continent via the Channel Tunnel and ferries could seriously disrupt trade flows just as businesses stock up for the year-end festive period.
The Frogs showing their famed perfidy..
ReplyDeleteWhy so worried about Frenchie and Britannia so far away...?
ReplyDeleteLike Frenchie we must protect our territorial waters and jaga our ikan, penyu, minyak dan gas. But where are the Scorpenes....?
If we do not take action lama lama we will lose our claim over our seas, like we did for that Batu Puteh, we allowed SGP to control it for decades then the "possession is nine-tenths of ownership" principle took over.
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China harasses Malaysian oil and gas vessels on a ‘daily’ basis, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says
Amy Chew
25 Oct, 2021
Chinese boats have been harassing civilian vessels in Malaysian oil and gas fields in the South China Sea “on a daily basis” for the past two years, according to the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
The Chinese coastguard was aiming to “control” the Luconia Shoals, where Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas company has several oil and gas fields, and was harassing vessels involved in “any new exploration or drilling operations”, said Greg Poling, director of the initiative at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
The Luconia Shoals, which lie within Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone, are home to the Kasawari gas field, which is being developed by Petronas and is situated some 200km (124 miles) from the coast of Bintulu in Sarawak.
Last week, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said he expected more Chinese vessels to enter the country’s waters “for as long as” Petronas continued to develop the field, which was discovered in November 2011 and is thought to contain 3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable gas resources. He also said Malaysia’s current relationship with China was “very difficult to quantify but is much better now”, despite what happened in the South China Sea.
Poling said, in an email response to questions from This Week in Asia, that the Chinese boats would harass offshore supply vessels servicing the rigs.
“They manoeuvre dangerously and intentionally create risks of collision to dissuade civilians from accepting such contracts,” Poling said.
If the Malaysian vessels didn’t back down, China would deploy one of its state-owned survey vessels to conduct illegal seabed surveys in Malaysian waters and these vessels would usually be accompanied by “a large contingent of maritime militia boats and a smaller number of Chinese coastguard vessels”, Poling said.
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Blurred mfer, u so can do some 'jaga-ing' by keep regurgitating yr farts, lies & twisted c&p!
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