violated the rules on fishing. What does the Corriere.it Agreement provide?

by time news

Brussels takes the field in the war on fisheries. The new conditions restricting the activities of European fishing vessels in British waters imposed by the UK do not comply with the provisions of the post-Brexit fisheries agreement and until we receive further justifications from the UK authorities, we believe they should not apply, he said. a spokeswoman for the EU Commission calling for calm and moderation.

The war on fisheries is now in danger of moving to court. The fifty French fishing boats lined up in front of the port of Saint Helier, Jersey, since Thursday morning to improvise a protest blockade against the fishing licenses imposed by the British government after the end of the provisional agreements on April 30, in the afternoon they began to leave the waters of the Channel Island, to return to the ports on the Normandy coast, from which the British island of the English Channel is just 20 kilometers away. Rison the other hand, the two warships sent by the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were deployed off the island to monitor the situation, after the threat to cut electricity to the island by the France which has further raised the tension by sending two patrol boats to patrol the area.


According to the spokesperson, on 30 April the EU Commission received a notification from the UK authorities on the granting of 41 licenses to European fishing vessels to operate from 1 May in the territorial waters of Jersey. However, further conditions were attached to the licenses. Brussels therefore indicated to London that the fisheries provisions of the post-Brexit agreement had not been respected, as all additional conditions related to the concessions must be based on clear and scientific reasons and not be discriminatory, the spokeswoman stressed. The request for additional conditions must also be notified in advance to give the parties time to evaluate and respond, reiterating that full compliance with the post-Brexit agreement is essential for Brussels.

To overcome difficulties and prevent conflicts, in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA)reached between the UK and the EU, just ratified by the European Parliament, provided for a dispute resolution mechanism through an arbitral tribunal, complementary to a series of corrective measures. Significantly, the second of the 4 examples used to illustrate the different measures envisaged under the TCA concerns precisely the disputes over fishing.

In the event of an alleged violation of the fisheries provisions of one of the parties, such as the adoption of discriminatory techniques or non-compliance with their respective quotas, and so on, corrective measures are preceded by a consultation period of 7 days, The party taking the measure must request the constitution of an arbitral tribunal, requesting an urgent arbitration procedure (within 3 months) . If the court rules that there has been no violation, the corrective measures must cease. Furthermore, if the inconsistency of the measure is significant, the responding party may apply proportionate compensation, as determined by the arbitral tribunal.

The TAC requires corrective measures to be proportionate to the economic impact: they range from the suspension of access to fishing waters to tariffs for the treatment of fish products; if the measures are not commensurate with the economic impact, they may also include the suspension of tariffs on other goods. And if that is still not enough, the obligations envisaged in the second part of the TCA, which concerns trade, roads, aviation, are suspended, with some exceptions.

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