Emmanuel Macron attempted to intimidate Britain into surrendering UK waters while offering little in return four years ago, we can reveal.
The bombshell revelation comes amid growing fears that history will repeat itself at the ‘Great EU Reset’ Summit on May 19.
Ostensibly, Keir Starmer will walk away with a framework for closer security cooperation with the bloc, but critics fear that the PM will make key concessions that sell out British fishing rights.
Official figures released on 29 Sept 2021 by the British Government do not inspire much confidence.
Between 01 January and late September 2021, almost 1,700 licences had been issued to EU27 fishing vessels to enter British waters (within 200 nautical miles). 117 of these were able to sail up to six miles from the United Kingdom’s shores to ply their trade, with more expected.
Emmanuel Macron's cunning five-day plot to bind Brexit Britain in chains as payback looms
Getty Images/Facts4EU
Of the 1,700 EU27 vessels, some were the notorious ‘EU factory ships’ which are alleged to cause major damage to fishing stocks and the marine environment by ‘hoovering up’ everything from the sea bed.
Now, an exclusive investigation by the UK Fisheries Campaign, in association with Facts4EU and GB News, shows how Britain came close to a dramatic breakdown with France during the tense five-day period in late 2021 that resulted in the current UK-EU fishing deal.
During this fraught negotiation, France threatened to cut off electric power supplying Britain and the Channel Islands via undersea cables.
The ultimatum followed weeks of increasing hostility from the French government over post-Brexit fishing licences.
One of the many complaints made by President Macron and his government was that the UK was deliberately "holding up" the issuing of licences to French fishing boats to fish in British waters.
In fact, only a tiny fraction of the total number of licence applications had not yet been approved. This was because the handful of French vessels involved were unable to give any proof that they had been fishing in UK waters pre-Brexit, despite the Government granting them an extension to do so.
Facts4EU.Org had analysed the details of the 1,681 EU27 registered fishing vessels which had the right to enter the UK’s ‘Exclusive Economic Zone’ and UK territorial waters at the time, thanks to the agreements the Government was required to sign up to by the EU Commission.
A UK Government spokesperson said on the eve of the negotiations: “The government has this year issued a large number of licences to EU vessels seeking to fish in our exclusive economic zone (12-200 nautical mile zone) and our territorial sea (6-12 nautical mile zone). Our approach has been reasonable and fully in line with our commitments in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).”
Indeed, the Government had been even more generous than that. Nine months after Brexit, the Marine Management Organisation said that it would continue to consider applications.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Between 01 January and late September 2021, almost 1,700 licences had been issued to EU27 fishing vessels to enter British waters (within 200 nautical miles)
Facts4EU
This coheres with Facts4EU.Org’s analysis, which showed that 738 licences had been issued to French vessels in the previous nine months. This represented 44 per cent of the entire EU27 total.
Only 35 small vessels from the entire EU27 fleet had been refused licences, and this was only in relation to the six to twelve nautical miles of territorial waters off the British coast.
The reason was that these vessels were unable to prove they had been fishing that close to the UK’s coastline while the UK was still a member of the EU. If they had provided the appropriate paperwork, they too would have been granted licences.
The latest statistics reveal that the French do very well out of the current arrangement.
France accounts for 44% of EU boats now licensed to fish in UK waters, according to data
FACTS4EU
France has 690 vessels with a UK fishing licence, according to data
FACTS4EU
France has been given UK licences which total more than the next three EU countries combined, 2025 figures show. The country now has over two and a half times that of Spain’s. France also has five times the number of UK fishing licences as the Dutch.
Despite this largesse, the French have been intransigent, claiming they have consistently got an unfair deal, Facts4EU claims.
This confrontation casts a shadow over Sir Keir Starmer's upcoming 'Great EU Reset Summit'.
The Labour government has said it hopes to reduce barriers to trade, such as by lowering border checks on goods, and to agree a UK–EU security pact, with Starmer highlighting the aim to reset with the EU after the Labour government took office in July 2024.
However, as we previously reported, the "likely direction of travel" for Labour is to sacrifice fishing waters for access to Brussels's €150billion defence fund, a mega investment drive unveiled last month aimed at enabling countries to re-arm quicker.
