EU and UK at loggerheads over fishing rights and youth mobility

EU subordinate states person rejected UK positions connected sportfishing and a younker mobility deal, arsenic tensions equine earlier a much-anticipated acme betwixt Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen adjacent week.

Senior EU diplomats gathering connected Wednesday expressed disappointment and vexation implicit the British positions connected sportfishing rights and younker mobility to the European Commission, which is negotiating a wide-ranging reset successful relations with the British government.

France and the Netherlands, with wide backing, importune that an EU-UK veterinary statement – aimed astatine reducing burdensome checks connected nutrient products crossing the borderline – should beryllium constricted to 4 years, unless London agrees to assistance semipermanent entree to British waters. The expiry day is an effort to maximise leverage connected the UK implicit the veterinary agreement, which was identified arsenic a precedence successful the Labour manifesto.

The EU is profoundly dismayed by the UK’s projected four-year woody connected fish, which is shorter than that Boris Johnson agreed successful 2020. One EU ambassador told the gathering that Europe would beryllium destroying its sportfishing manufacture without specified reciprocity, it is understood.

One diplomatic root told the Guardian that the UK was “not sufficiently ambitious”. Another said: “There is simply a feeling among a ample radical of subordinate states that the equilibrium betwixt rights and obligations is not determination yet.”

The committee told the diplomats that talks with the UK were “very difficult” contempt good implicit 100 hours spent successful high-level negotiations implicit caller weeks.

Starmer is expected to conscionable von der Leyen connected the margins of the European Political Community acme successful Albania connected Friday successful a bid to unblock these sticking points. The premier curate volition big von der Leyen; the European Council president, António Costa; and the EU precocious overseas affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, astatine the archetypal EU-UK acme successful London connected Monday.

EU ambassadors volition convene connected Sunday to sermon the acme text, successful a portion of last-minute scheduling reminiscent of Brexit negotiations.

Both sides anticipation to motion a defence statement connected Monday that volition unlock the doorway to greater information by British arms companies successful European defence projects. Negotiators person already welcomed the accord successful the draught acme declaration seen by the Guardian.

While respective EU diplomats expressed assurance of a “substantial” outcome, they besides insisted the UK had to determination connected post-Brexit sportfishing rights and younker mobility. “[Fisheries] is 1 of the gathering blocks of this agreement. It is not imaginable to ideate that we person a palmy acme without a affirmative result connected this issue,” a 3rd diplomat said. “If you don’t person an statement connected fisheries, you don’t person an statement connected SDP [security and defence policy], you don’t person an statement connected migration. It has to beryllium a win-win.”

Under the trade statement struck betwixt the EU and Boris Johnson successful 2020, the EU’s stock of food quotas successful British waters was reduced by 25% implicit a modulation play that ends connected 30 June 2026.

The EU, led by countries that food successful British waters, privation a semipermanent statement to sphere the presumption quo aft that date.

EU subordinate states are besides unhappy with proposals that a work-study speech strategy for radical aged 18-30 could beryllium constricted to 1 twelvemonth and taxable to quotas.

On Wednesday galore diplomats criticised UK plans not to exempt EU students from overseas tuition interest rates, a reddish enactment for the government, which is nether stringent self-imposed nationalist spending limits. While home students wage £9,535 a year, overseas pupil fees tin scope up to £38,000, adding important costs for EU students studying successful the UK.

The government, which connected Monday unveiled pugnacious measures that it expects to curb migration by 100,000 a year, besides opposes EU demands to waive the NHS surcharge for young people.