Haggling over fishing rights, the European Union [EU] and the United Kingdom keep quibbling over how much cod fish the U.K. can pull out of the Bristish channel, something French fisherman control by 80%. EU’s 69-year-old chief Brexit negotiator Michael Barnier has shown no willingness to split the differences with 56-year-old U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. But unlike the U.K. that just wants to be left alone, the EU has had its hooks in the U.K. since 1993 when it was first accepted into the EU. EU’s government is housed in Brussels, stretching across the continent from Strassbourg, France to Frankfurt, Germany and parts between. Between the European Commission headed by 62-year-old Ursula von der Leyen and 44-year-old European Council headed by Charles Michel, the bureaucracy is inconceivable, prompting Johnson and other pro-Brexiteers to get out.
When you consider the real importance of the Ireland-Northern Ireland border, continuing the passport free trade zone between the EU and U.K. is top priority, not bickering over codfish. What does the EU not get about Westminster’s March 23, 2016 decision to leave the EU? EU officials, especially 66-year-old German Chancellor Angela Merkel and 44-year-old French President Emnanuel Macron take no responsibility for pressuring the U.K. to take more Syrian refugees while they prosecuted their proxy was with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Spending billions backing Syrian rebels with known ties to terror groups, the EU spent eight years trying to topple al-Assad but instead wound up killing 500,000 Syrians and driving 15 million more into exile, a good portion of whom sough asylum in the EU, nearly breaking the union.
No one at the EU, including Barnier who handles the Brexit negotiations, wants to take responsibility for driving the U.K. out of the EU. With the Brexit process nearly five years old, it’s high time for the EU to let the U.K. go without the harassment of convoluted trade deals to satisfy the EU bureaucracy but has no respect for U.K. sovereignty. EU officials led by Von der Leyen and Michel need to cut the U.K. some slack on a trade deal, not expecting the U.K. to abide by EU guidelines since Brexit means the U.K. is free of Brussels’ bureaucracy. EU officials make it out like No. 10 Downing Street is creating the problems. Von der Leyaen and Michel are trying to impose strict EU rules on the U.K. when they have no right to do that after Jan. 31, when the split was official. Instead of fighting about codfish, the EU should look for economic cooperation with the U.K.
France is so concerned that the U.K. will encroach on cod fishing in the British Channel, Olivier Leprêtre, president of Hauts-de-France regional fisheries, told the French fishing industry that there would be changes. France’s Prime Minister Jean Castex said that France’s fishing communities would not be treated as a pawn of Britain. Whatever age-old animosity exists between France and Britain, they’ve come out in the 11th hour trade talks. “It is a negotiation and a negotiation must lead to compromise,” Castex said. “And we must be with you in these compromises. A new era is about to begin. I would like there to be a specific support plan . . . the state will take its responsibilities,” not realizing that the Brexit deal afforded the U.K. new autonomy that could not be controlled by the EU. Brussels doesn’t want to enter into a trade agreement that doesn’t protect the EU.
Irish Prime Minister Michéal Martin put his faith in Barnier to come up with an acceptable trade deal. “We are now at a very critical and sensitive point of the negotiations,” said Martin. Martin’s colleague, Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, warned of the EU playing too much hardball with Johnson, calling the negotiation “a very dangerous assumption” that future talks would result in a better deal for the EU. Some EU officials want to kick the can down the road, postponing talks until 2021. Citing “significant disruption, costs, stress and blame games between Brussels and London,” Conveney urged completion of a deal, even where the EU can’t get what it wants. What the EU hoped for in any trade deal was the same arrangement the U.K. had when it was part of the EU. “There’s a good chance we can get a deal across in the next few days,” said Covneney.
Von der Leyen and Michel must accept that the U.K. is not part of the EU any longer, facing limited leverage over the British fishing industry that’s only 0.1% of the British economy. Brussels already lost the U.K. because it imposed unreasonable demands on immigration for Syrian refuges, while, simultaneously, backing the Saudi proxy war that drove 15 million Syrians out of their homes. So in the 11th hour negotiations on a trade deal, Johnson’s in no mood sell off British sovereignty because the EU’s still mad about the U.K. leaving the EU. Johnson’s already made concessions to allow EU fisherman to keep 60% of their catch, down from 80%. Barnier’s senior negotiator Stefaan De Rynck said “significant divergences” existed but thinks a deal is still possible. Keeping the 1998 Good Friday Agreement for an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland was always the most important part of a trade deal.
