French Fishing Fleet Blockade and fishing licenses

[XJSJohn]

Looked back a few days and surprised i couldn't find a thread on this.

seems that the French Fishing Fleet are planning on blockading the UK in protest at a lack of fishing licenses being issued by the UK.

I can't find much detail about the terms or quotas, however i think that there are several categories of licence depending on the size / type of fishing vessel and the issue seems to sit just with the small boat licenses (under 30ft) where many cannot prove (as per the terms of the agreement) that they did fish in UK territorial waters in a specific period, either because the boats are too new, or they just don't have the navigational equipment to demonstrate.

The result being a typically french one.

anyone got a bit more insight as the UK Media seems to be being surprisingly quiet on this one.

[Jenny Tailor]

Iirc. The affected French boats do not want to have the obligatory GPS tracker fitted so it can be checked they are fishing in authorized areas and adhering to the agreement.

[XJSJohn]

Jenny Tailor said:

Iirc. The affected French boats do not want to have the obligatory GPS tracker fitted so it can be checked they are fishing in authorized areas and adhering to the agreement.

that would be AIS, which is not compulsory on vessels below 10m (in general), but is needed to prove location as per the regulations on fishing in UK waters.

that does sort of make sense, as, from what i can tell, there doesn't seem to be any issues with teh larger vessels that have submitted and been granted permission to fish UK waters.

That would mean that this impending blockade is all over some 70 odd licences for small fishing boats that want to operate in CI Waters but don't want to have AIS installed to track.

[Earthdweller]

It seems that the French have had 800 licences approved but a few couldn’t evidence prior history of fishing in U.K. waters as agreed in the U.K.-EU WA and so didn’t qualify for a licence as agreed between the U.K. and EU … 44 boats I think

Maybe they should just withdraw the licences from all the French boats

[Vanden Saab]

Earthdweller said:

It seems that the French have had 800 licences approved but a few couldn’t evidence prior history of fishing in U.K. waters as agreed in the U.K.-EU WA and so didn’t qualify for a licence as agreed between the U.K. and EU … 44 boats I think

Maybe they should just withdraw the licences from all the French boats

is there not a suggestion that these boats previously claimed not to be fishing in the UK area and therefore show no records as the earlier eu quotas would not allow it.
It all seems a bit fishy to me.

[XJSJohn]

Vanden Saab said:

Earthdweller said:

It seems that the French have had 800 licences approved but a few couldn’t evidence prior history of fishing in U.K. waters as agreed in the U.K.-EU WA and so didn’t qualify for a licence as agreed between the U.K. and EU … 44 boats I think

Maybe they should just withdraw the licences from all the French boats

is there not a suggestion that these boats previously claimed not to be fishing in the UK area and therefore show no records as the earlier eu quotas would not allow it.
It all seems a bit fishy to me.

So my original understanding of this is correct, it is one of the brexit agreements, the UK is applying it to the letter, just as EU member states are applying other agreements to the uk, and the French don’t like it.