No Deal is looming as Brexit talks stall

Macron says he won’t budge over fishing rights

BREXIT talks were on a knife-edge last night after Emmanuel Macron vowed that French fisherman will not be ‘sacrificed’ to get a trade deal.

European Union leaders were ramping up preparations for the possibility of No Deal as the French president’s refusal to give ground threatened to sink the negotiations.

Boris Johnson is due to decide this morning whether to keep trade talks going for two more weeks in the hope of a breakthrough or to walk away immediately. The Prime Minister had warned that he needed to see a ‘strong and credible signal’ out of yesterday’s Brussels summit that a deal was within reach.

But the EU leaders, who met without Mr Johnson, last night insisted it was for the UK to compromise to get a deal signed. A draft of the summit’s conclusions had proposed that EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier should ‘intensify’ his discussions with British counterpart Lord Frost.

The European Council members last night dropped the word and instead merely stated that the two sides should ‘continue negotiations in the coming weeks’. But Mr Barnier said later that he would offer to hold two more weeks of ‘accelerated’ and ‘intensive’ negotiations with Lord Frost’s team.

Lord Frost last night said he was ‘surprised and disappointed’ by the developments. He tweeted: ‘ Boris Johnson will set out UK reactions and approach tomorrow (Friday).’

In a further gloomy sign yesterday, the EU leaders ‘called upon member states, [EU] institutions and all

‘They will not be sacrificed’

stakeholders to step up their work on preparedness and readiness at all and for all outcomes, including that of no agreement’.

Fishing has become the most significant stumbling block in the negotiations on a trade deal between the EU and UK.

The British Government has insisted it wants to take back control of its waters as the country becomes an independent coastal state. It has said that European nations will have to request access on a yearly basis, with quotas agreed through annual negotiations.

France has rejected this idea and demanded that their boats continue to get the same access as now.

Other EU states are understood to be putting pressure on the French to compromise, but Mr Macron insisted he would stand firm.

As he arrived at the summit, he said: ‘Our fishermen will under no circumstance be the ones sacrificed to Brexit. We didn’t choose Brexit.

‘Preserving access for our fishermen to British waters is an important point for us.

‘And so maintaining access to British waters, finding a good compromise for our fishermen... is an important issue in this discussion for us.’

The UK has some of the richest fishing grounds in the world, but British vessels land less than a third (32 per cent) of all fish caught here. EU boats take 43 per cent, while Norwegians catch 21 per cent.

At the end of the transition period in December, the UK will leave the EU-wide Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). At present, the CFP dictates how much British fishermen can catch and where, and they complain that they do not get a fair share of what is caught in UK waters.

The Fisheries Bill, currently going through Parliament, will end the automatic right of EU vessels to fish in British waters.