LONDON — It wasn’t another Falklands War, let alone a modern-day
battle of Trafalgar. Yet, when naval ships from Britain and
France converged in
the waters off the island of Jersey on Thursday, it was a vivid reminder of the
loose ends left by Britain’s bitter departure from the European Union.
اضافة اعلان
The maritime standoff came after 60 French fishing boats massed
to blockade a port in Jersey in an ugly spat over post-Brexit fishing rights.
By day’s end, tempers had cooled as both sides pledged to work out differences
over new licensing requirements for the French fishermen who ply these coastal
waters. The French protesters shot off flares and waved angry banners, then
sailed away.
The sudden eruption of tensions in the English Channel, five
months after
Britain ratified its split with the European Union and on the eve
of a British election, drew theatrical displays of muscle-flexing in London and
Paris — suggesting it was a politically expedient six-hour clash, even if it
augurs months or years of tensions ahead.
The dramatics began Wednesday evening when Prime Minister Boris
Johnson deployed two Royal Navy vessels, the HMS Tamar and the HMS Severn. His
office called it a “precautionary measure,” but it amounted to a vigorous show
of support for Jersey, a crown dependency of Britain and the largest of the
Channel Islands.
A day later, France answered with its own deployment of two
naval patrol ships near the island, which lies just 14 miles off the French
coast. French officials said they were sent to protect the “safety of human
life at sea” in the crowded waters off Jersey’s capital, Saint Helier. British
papers published video of a French trawler ramming the stern of a British
pleasure craft; no one was hurt.
Earlier in the week, a French government official warned that
France could cut off the power supply to Jersey, most of which is delivered
through undersea cables from France. That brought a derisive reaction from
London, where officials muttered that even Germany hadn’t turned off the lights
when it occupied Jersey during World War II.
For Britain, which just played host to foreign ministers from
the Group of 7 nations and is debuting its post-Brexit role in the world, a
clash with France over fish in the English Channel seemed like a relic of a
bygone age. But it also laid bare the risks of life outside the
European Union.
“This is the kind of old-fashioned dispute that the European
Union was created to prevent,” said Simon Fraser, the former top civil servant
in Britain’s Foreign Office. “When you leave the European Union, you risk
reopening them.”
Gérard Araud, a longtime French diplomat who served as
ambassador to the United States, said, “What is happening in Jersey is, on the
one hand, totally silly. Threatening to cut off the electricity makes no sense.”
Still, Araud said the indignant French reaction had a deeper
subtext: The country’s sense of anger and loss at Britain’s departure from the
European Union, where it had helped balance France’s relationship with Germany.
At issue in Jersey are new licensing requirements the
authorities imposed on French fishing boats, which have long worked the waters
around the Channel Islands. Among other things, the vessels are required to
carry equipment that allows their locations to be tracked.
Under the part of the Brexit agreement governing fishing, which
went into effect on May 1, following a four-month grace period, Jersey granted
fishing licenses to 41 French boats larger than 12 meters. The problem,
according to Marc Delahaye, director of the Normandy Regional Fisheries
Committee, was that the additional requirements were imposed without warning or
consultation. The European Commission said the British government had notified
it of the changes last week and that it was in discussions with London.
As a crown dependency, Jersey is not part of the United Kingdom
and has special status that gives it self-governing rights, including its own
Legislative Assembly, as well as fiscal and legal systems. However, Jersey’s
reliance on French electricity makes its economy vulnerable, Delahaye said,
noting that it was in the interests of the British and French governments to
calm the situation.
“I don’t think that London and Paris want to start firing
missiles across the Channel,” he said.
France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, said Thursday that
France also wanted a quick easing of tensions and the implementation of the
Brexit trade agreement. But he told Agence France-Presse, “We won’t be
intimidated by these maneuvers.”
While the dispersal of the French fishing boats defused the
immediate crisis, authorities in Jersey have yet to grant licenses for smaller
French vessels. Fishing, therefore, could remain a flash point.
For Johnson, however, the timing of the clash arguably could not
have been better. Voters went to the polls in Britain on Thursday in local and
regional elections that are viewed as a referendum on his Conservative Party
after Brexit and a year of the pandemic. News that he had deployed navy
warships, bristling with machine guns, pushed aside a skein of reports about
his ethical conduct while in office.
“Our New Trafalgar,” said a headline in the online edition of
the Daily Mail, referring to the 1805 battle in which the Royal Navy vanquished
the navies of France and Spain and established Britain’s maritime supremacy.
One of the French patrol boats, the Athos, was much smaller than the British
warships, it noted.
On Thursday, Johnson called the chief minister of Jersey, John
Le Fondré , to reiterate “his unequivocal support for Jersey,” according to a
readout from Downing Street. Hours later, the government declared the crisis “resolved
for now” and said the two warships would prepare to return to port.
Read more
Europe
.jpg)
.jpg)
