Liz Truss gives France 48 hours to back down in fishing row
Foreign secretary Liz Truss has set France a 48-hour deadline to reconsider its threats to the UK over fishing row, before the UK takes legal action.
Truss accused France of making “completely unreasonable threats,” and behaving “unfairly,” in an interview with Sky News, which first reported the news, at the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow.
The UK would “absolutely” take legal action if France did not back down from its threats in the next 48 hours, Truss told Sky News.
The news is the latest development in a fishing dispute between the two countries in the aftermath of Brexit.
France has threatened the UK with a fishing boat ban from some of its ports and tougher customs checks on lorries ferrying in British goods from Tuesday, if more fishing licences are not granted by the UK for French boats to fish in British waters.
The UK has warned that the threats are in breach of the post-Brexit Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) that the country tabled with the European Union.
The foreign secretary, who suggested that the French presidential election next year may be a motive for the stern stance by Emmanuel Macron, added that the UK and France could “both benefit by trading more with each other, by working together on issues like security and defence.”