• EU: Fishing quotas get in the way of the Brexit deal

  • Brexit: Barnier goes to London with the mission of "not being intimidated" in the final negotiation

  • United Kingdom Brexit: the final act of divorce

France has threatened to

veto the post-Brexit trade deal

and has thrown a jug of cold water on the final stretch of negotiations in London.

The dispute over the

fishing quotas of the French fleet in British waters

got in the way again at the key moment, when the wind finally blew in favor of an agreement in the early hours of Thursday.

A Downing Street spokesman acknowledged that the negotiations are

"at a very difficult time"

and that there is very little time left to bring positions closer.

The aforementioned spokesman assured that the United Kingdom does not plan to renounce its "fundamental principles to regain sovereignty, and that includes from our system of state subsidies to the control of our territorial waters."

EU chief negotiator Michel Banier could temporarily return to Brussels to update the 27 of the critical situation.

The 'premier' Boris Johnson will possibly have a phone call with the president of the European Council, Ursula von del Leyen, during the weekend, in the hope of unlocking the negotiations.

But the ball is in the court of French President Emmanuel Macron, who surprised locals and strangers with his

threat to act unilaterally if he considers that the agreement is detrimental to his country

.

The French intervention was seen as "destabilizing" not only by the British negotiators, but also by the Irish, who

considered that the agreement was finally at hand

.

"We cannot all be negotiators at the same time, we have to have confidence in our negotiating team," declared Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin.

His Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, even traveled to Paris to express his

displeasure at the French interference and ask for the full support of the team led by Michel Barnier

, in an unusual sign of disunity within the bloc.

Coveney has come to warn his French counterpart, Clément Beaune, that a

'no deal'

on the fisheries issue would create "great political tension, significant disruption, high costs, stress and blame game between London and Brussels."

In the community capital the interpretation is more nuanced

.

On the one hand, France has always been the one with the toughest negotiating position on the Brexit issue, from day one.

He has not been afraid to repeat it and to warn, each time a decisive moment approached, that they would not accept a bad agreement.

On the other hand,

at 27 it is also good for them, as a negotiating position, to have an 'ogre'

.

Ireland, the most interested in an agreement, was completely intransigent during the negotiation that affected the borders and Northern Ireland and the 26 were by his side constantly.

But what the Elysee is doing is also covering its back.

The ambassadors in Brussels were informed these weeks of the progress made.

In the previous negotiation, in the final phase,

Barnier's team requested to enter "a tunnel"

, which in local slang meant to continue negotiating with London but in the dark,

without having to inform the capitals of each step

and with margin of action for painful assignments.

Although this mechanism may be essential for an agreement, it is also dangerous.

Spain knows this well, which found itself at the exit of the tunnel with an article whose legal interpretation, in the case of Gibraltar, considered unacceptable and which led to a much more concrete veto threat than that of France now.

Macron wants, in case of losing control for a few days, his position to be very clear and also, to advance as much ground as possible before giving in,

reports Pablo R. Suanzes from Brussels

.

The political upheaval in France was reactivated after a visit by Prime Minister Jean Castex to Bolougne-sur-Mer, near Calais, where he

promised "national solidarity" to the fishermen

and reiterated his refusal to accept "an agreement at any price".

Castex said that Europe's coastal populations cannot become sacrificed "pawns" in the chess game of the future trade deal.

FISHERIES FEES AND A "SAME LEVEL OF GAME"

Fishing has become the main stumbling block in the negotiations, alongside

the EU's "level playing field" requirement in state subsidies, tax transparency, and labor and environmental standards

.

Although the fishing sector accounts for only 0.1% of British GDP (with an annual turnover of 1.6 billion euros and 24,000 direct jobs), it is a highly symbolic chapter in the negotiations, given the UK's insistence on recovering the control of its borders, its laws and its territorial waters.

London intended to leave the fisheries negotiation out of the post-Brexit trade agreement and determine annually the quotas for access to its territorial waters for the EU fleet, mainly the French and the Irish.

The EU insisted on the need to include the fisheries issue in the general package of the negotiations

and to reach a longer-term agreement that allows a certain "predictability" to the fleets.

The starting point could not be further: the British Government demanded the

"repatriation" of up to 80% of the catches in its territorial waters

, while the EU offered 15% to 18%, a figure considered as " laughable "for London.

British negotiator David Frost lowered the bar to 60% this week, and some sources say the cut could even reach 50%.

"We thought we were in a very good place on Wednesday, with everyone investing their energies to make the deal a success," sources from the British negotiating team told

The Daily Telegraph

.

"But the French did this last minute intervention and destabilized the conservancies. It was a big step backwards."

Apart from the fisheries issue, there are still differences in the EU's insistence on the "same level of play", and in the

mechanisms to guarantee it as soon as the agreement enters into force

.

The British Government considers some of the claims of Brussels - especially those referring to state aid, and more so in the critical situation created by the pandemic - as an interference in its sovereignty.

Negotiators have apparently set

Sunday night or Monday morning as the new deadline

.

The spokesman for the Coservadores in the House of Commons, Jacob Rees Mogg, has meanwhile threatened a new vote on Monday on the controversial Internal Market Law.

Michel Barnier has warned in advance that if the British Parliament votes again on the "offensive clauses" contained in that legal text (in open violation of the protocol for Northern Ireland contained in the initial Brexit agreement), the negotiations would enter a "crisis" definitive.

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