The EU could hit Britain and Jersey’s energy supply over the UK’s failure to provide sufficient fishing licences to French fishers, France’s EU affairs minister has said, reports The Guardian.
Clément Beaune, who is a close ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said action would be decided on within days and discussions were already in motion.
France’s prime minister, Jean Castex, echoed the sentiment, telling the national assembly that the EU had to be firmer with the UK. “The [European] Commission is moving, it must do more”, he said.
France has been consistently pushing the EU to take a stronger stance against the UK over its concerns that Boris Johnson’s government is acting in breach of its obligations over fishing access to Channel waters.
Last week a third of French boats applying to fish in Jersey’s waters were turned down by the island’s government. The previous week the UK government provided only 12 of 47 French vessels with permits for its coastal waters. The UK and Jersey authorities have said the vessels that had been turned down had failed to provide evidence of operating in the relevant waters.