EU 'will demand access to UK fishing waters' in return for new deal (2024)

The European Union will demand access to UK waters in return for a renewed relationship with Britain - but such a move could cause a headache for Sir Keir Starmer amid claims by British fisherman of 'trading away their rights'.

Labour has made no secret of wanting closer relations with Europe and last week hosteda meeting of dozens of European leaders at Blenheim Palace.

The Prime Minister welcomed several premiers includingEmmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Pedro Sanchez and Giorgia Meloni for the European Political Community meeting, which discussed trade, security, foreign policy and immigration.

However senior Eurocrats have warned that any talks with the EU on a renewed relationship will be used to pursue their 'offensive interests'.

This includes fishing access, as well as a deal to allow young European migrants unrestricted access to the UK.

Just before the General Election, Sir Keir Starmer saidthat 'everything' about the post-Brexit relationship needed re-negotiating anddescribed the deal struck by Boris Johnsonas 'botched'.

He also vowed to strike a 'better' one if he won theElection.

Now in charge of the fledgling Labour Government, Sir Keir has been offered an EU-UK summit in Brussels Charles Michel, the European Council president, to begin such talks.

But what exactly will be on the agenda for the EU's 27 prime ministers and presidents still remains to be decided.

An EU official told The Telegraph: 'First they have to work out exactly what they want and then come to us and we will talk about it.'

Fishing is more than likely to be top of the list, according to EU sources.

French prime minister Emmanuel Macron is eager to secure a better deal from the EU side given that theUK-EU fisheries deal expires at the end of June 2026.

He told reporters at the EPC that any renegotiation should not become a 'cherry picking' of what had been decided before under Boris Johnson.

Macron said: 'This one obviously has to respect what was decided at the time and should not be a sort of cherry picking.'

German chancellor Olaf Scholz was more conciliatoryand said: 'It is too early now to go into the details, but there is a willingness to solve every question that needs to be solved in order to have good relations.'

Before the election, senior Eurocrats predicted that fishing would take priority at any talks with the EU.

One told The Times in June:'If a new government wants new trade talks, France will make sure that any trade negotiations by the European Commission are linked to fisheries.

'The problem for Britain is that the marine protection areas are where the fish are that the French, and others, want to catch.'

Under the post-Brexit UK-EU trade deal, 25 per cent of the overall existing EU quota in UK waters will be transferred to the UK over a five-and-a-half-year transition period to 30 June 2026.

After 2026, negotiations on access and share of stocks will take place on an annual basis, although multi-annual agreements are possible.

Labour will be in charge of these if it wins the Election, along with a review of the wider trade pact scheduled for next year.

British diplomats were said to be alarmed last month when the EU, under pressure mainly from France, began pressing to begin the fishing negotiations and triggered a dispute mechanism over British marine environmental protection measures.

In April the European Commission also tabled a 'youth mobility' proposal, including the demand that no limit would be set on numbers of people aged between 18 and 30 coming to work or study for four years, with full rights to bring their family members to Britain.

Lord Frost, Mr Johnson's chief negotiator for the post-Brexit trade deal, warned in June that 'if the EU gives you something it wants something back..'

While on the campaign trail, Sir Keir tried to play down any possible revers of Brexit in regards to fishing rights and said he acknowledged their importance for British fisherman.

He said at the time: 'I'm not going to go into negotiations which haven't even started yet.

'But I know how important it is to defend our fishing rights and how important that is to our fishing communities.

'I think they feel they've been let down because they were told they would get a better deal than they got, and we wouldn't let them down in this and trade away their rights, because that access and that fishing is vital to those communities.

'And I think just at the moment they are feeling they've been very let down.'

While Labour's manifesto said it would not re-join the bloc's single market, customs union or allow freedom of movement again, it did pledge to 'deepen ties' with Brussels.