Paris to Announce Retaliatory Measures in Fisheries Dispute With UK by End of Week

PARIS (Sputnik) - The French authorities will announce sanctions by the end of this week that may be imposed if the UK continues to fail to comply with the agreement on licenses for French fishermen, French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said Wednesday.

"First of all, we would like not to announce sanctions and would like the UK to comply with the treaties that were signed", Attal said at a briefing.

He noted that until now, London has not complied with the agreement that was signed as part of Brexit.

"By the end of the week, we want to announce the sanctions that we can impose. There are several types of sanctions that are possible – on electricity tariffs, on access to ports, on customs issues. Other measures are also possible", Attal said.

He said that these measures will be announced by Minister for Maritime Affairs Annique Girardin, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, and Secretary of State for European Affairs in the French government, Clement Beaune.

The French authorities stated that they consider the UK's position on issuing licenses to French fishermen to be absolutely unacceptable, and intend to consider the possibility of retaliatory measures.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex called on the European Commission to strictly oversee compliance with the obligations undertaken by the UK on the issue of granting licenses, and did not rule out a revision of bilateral cooperation with London in various areas in case of non-compliance with the agreements.

At the end of September, the British Ministry of the Environment reported that 1,700 vessels from the EU received licenses to fish in the UK waters, of which 117 lwere issued to vessels from the EU for fishing in a zone of 6-12 nautical miles. The ministry issued only 12 licenses to French fishermen, having considered 47 applications.