LONDON, Nov. 1 (Princea Latina) British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss today gave France 48 hours to resolve its post-Brexit fisheries dispute with the United Kingdom, or else the government will resort to legal action.
Truss told Sky News that the French acted unfairly, outside the terms of the trade agreement, and if someone acted in this way, the individual had the right to act against the other party, and to seek compensation.
According to the British head of diplomacy, if the crisis is not resolved within 48 hours, then London will activate the legal dispute resolution mechanism stipulated in the Brexit agreement.
The UK’s exit from the European Union last year ended free access for EU ships to British fishing grounds, but French authorities are complaining about London’s delay in granting new licenses.
In response, France last week stopped a British ship fishing off its coast in the English Channel, and fined another, while threatening to cut electricity to the British island of Jersey, which receives 95 percent of its power from French territory via three submarine cables.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke about the crisis at a bilateral meeting held the day before in Rome, but the meeting did not succeed in resolving differences, as each side hopes the other will acquiesce.
The British government said last September that more than 1,700 EU fishing vessels had obtained licenses to fish in UK territorial waters as part of a post-Brexit trade and cooperation agreement.
London also says that only a few French ships did not obtain the corresponding permits because they did not provide the corresponding documents.
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