Their families have been fishing here for decades but despite promises of frictionless trade, the market for their fish is disappearing
Steph Noel, who has been fishing the waters off Jersey for almost four decades, could not see the point of chugging out to sea in his 8.5-metre boat, Belle Bird, this weekend.
“There’s no value in it for me,” he said. “It’ll cost me in bait and diesel but even if I have a good day there’s no market there for what I bring back.”
Continue reading...Chios case highlights deplorable conditions on islands despite EU allocating millions of euros to improve facilities, aid workers say
At a desolate refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios earlier this week, a young man died alone in a tent. By the time the guards arrived on the scene, about 12 hours after the Somali refugee’s death, the body was surrounded by rodents.
Asylum seekers who had initially alerted staff spoke in horror at seeing rats and mice swarming about.
Continue reading...New restrictions and deep cuts to allowances mean both French and Jersey boat owners feel betrayed by Brexit
Dawn was still four hours away and the small Normandy port of Carteret was alive, some boats hurriedly unloading their catch for a rapid turnaround, others turning on their lights and firing up their engines for the first time that night.
Minutes after 3am on Thursday they had left the quayside and, in pitch darkness and a gentle swell, were pushing smartly out to sea to join a growing armada of 60-odd boats from Cherbourg right the way round to St-Malo.
Continue reading...Health commissioner says plan is to reduce hospitalisation and tackle long-term impact of Covid
Three Covid medicines with the potential to “change the course” of the pandemic will be authorised for mass production and use in the EU by October under a European Commission plan.
Stella Kyriakides, the commissioner for health, said such a move would reduce hospitalisation and tackle the long-term impact of Covid, with one in 10 people reporting symptoms 12 weeks after infection.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson dispatches two gunboats to protect island from feared blockade
Boris Johnson has dispatched two Royal Navy patrol boats to protect Jersey from a feared blockade by French fishing vessels, in an escalation of a dispute over post-Brexit access to waters around the Channel island.
The move followed talks on Wednesday evening between the prime minister and the chief minister of the British crown dependency, John Le Fondré, who had warned Downing Street of imminent movements by French fishing boats to cut off the island’s main port.
Continue reading...The French maritime minister, Annick Girardin, warned on Tuesday that France could cut off electricity to the British island of Jersey in a dispute over fishing rights. The warning followed claims from Paris that Jersey was stalling in issuing licences to French boats under the terms of the UK’s post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. 'The agreement provides for retaliatory measures and these measures of retaliation we are ready to use,' Girardin told French lawmakers.
Paris threatens to take retaliatory measures in row over post-Brexit licences for French fishing boats
Jersey has accused France of making “disproportionate” threats after Paris warned it could cut off electricity to the island in a row over post-Brexit fishing rights.
The maritime minister, Annick Girardin, warned on Tuesday France was ready to take “retaliatory measures” after accusing the Channel Island of dragging its feet over issuing new licences to French boats.
Continue reading...Revealed: EU chief negotiator’s diaries, The Great Illusion, give blow-by-blow account of moves behind UK’s departure
Britain’s post-Brexit future was determined by “the quarrels, low blows, multiple betrayals and thwarted ambitions of a certain number of Tory MPs”, the EU’s chief negotiator has said in his long-awaited diaries.
The UK’s early problem, writes Michel Barnier in The Great Illusion, his 500-page account, was that they began by “talking to themselves. And they underestimate the legal complexity of this divorce, and many of its consequences.”
Continue reading...A Guardian analysis finds EU countries used brutal tactics to stop nearly 40,000 asylum seekers crossing borders
EU member states have used illegal operations to push back at least 40,000 asylum seekers from Europe’s borders during the pandemic, methods being linked to the death of more than 2,000 people, the Guardian can reveal.
In one of the biggest mass expulsions in decades, European countries, supported by EU’s border agency Frontex, has systematically pushed back refugees, including children fleeing from wars, in their thousands, using illegal tactics ranging from assault to brutality during detention or transportation.
Continue reading...Massive trade agreement stalls after tit-for-tat sanctions prompted by Chinese policy in Xinjiang
The European Commission has said that efforts to ratify a massive investment deal with China have been in effect suspended after tit-for-tat sanctions were imposed over China’s treatment of its Uyghur population in March.
“We now in a sense have suspended … political outreach activities from the European Commission side,” said the commission’s executive vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, on Tuesday. He said that the current state of relations between Brussels and Beijing was “not conducive” for the ratification of the deal, which is known as EU-China comprehensive agreement on investment.
Continue reading...French minister raises electricity supply as point of leverage in dispute over access to UK waters
The French government could cut off the electricity supply to Jersey in an escalating row over post-Brexit fishing rights, a French minister has suggested.
Responding to questions in the national assembly, Annick Girardin, the minister for maritime affairs, said she was “revolted” by the UK government’s behaviour over its waters and France was ready to retaliate.
Continue reading...EU now confident that supply – the biggest problem in early months of year – should not be an obstacle to further acceleration
The restaurant and cafe terraces spilling out into the streets of the pretty Dutch medieval town of Sluis were teeming over the weekend with smiling people clinking glasses under the spring sun.
The Netherlands reopened alfresco hospitality last Wednesday and Belgians, ignoring official advice, had driven a short distance across the border in huge numbers to enjoy their neighbour’s freedom over the long Labour day weekend. “We could have filled 400 tables,” said an apologetic waiter at the Resto de Eetboetiek, as he turned away the latest family arriving without a reservation.
Continue reading...Country Milk’s trade with the EU has nosedived with the dairy industry particularly badly affected by new customs rules
A small error in the paperwork – a box ticked by mistake – and the tanker of butter oil was held at French customs for five days, with veterinary authorities at the border threatening to destroy it. The debacle nearly cost the tanker’s exporter, dairy company County Milk, a six-figure sum. After fraught negotiations, the cargo was eventually repatriated.
“You don’t need too many of those to be destroyed and you are in dire straits,” says Phil Langslow, trading director at County Milk, the UK’s largest privately owned dairy ingredients business.
Continue reading...Brussels promises to retaliate against move, which Moscow says was a response to punitive EU measures in March
The EU has accused Russia of seeking confrontation after the Kremlin sanctioned senior officials in Brussels and the president of the European parliament in a retaliatory move.
In a joint statement by Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel and David Sassoli, the heads of the European commission, council and parliament said Moscow’s action on Friday had been “groundless”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Frans Timmermans says older people need to make sacrifices to protect the future
Older people will have to make sacrifices in the fight against climate change or today’s children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food, the EU’s deputy chief has warned.
Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the EU commission, said that if social policy and climate policy are not combined, to share fairly the costs and benefits of creating a low-carbon economy, the world will face a backlash from people who fear losing jobs or income, stoked by populist politicians and fossil fuel interests.
Continue reading...Unicef warns many child refugees and migrants picked up off the coast of Libya will be sent to ‘appalling’ detention centres
Fears are rising over the numbers of lone children risking their lives to reach Europe after 114 were pulled from the Mediterranean Sea in one day this week.
The unaccompanied minors were among 125 children rescued off the Libyan coast on Tuesday by the authorities, aid agencies said.
Continue reading...Pascal Soriot says firm is doing its best to produce more and ‘should be proud of what we did in the world’
AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has mounted a robust defence of the drugmaker’s Covid-19 vaccine efforts, and said the business should be proud of what it has done for the world and is doing its “very best” to produce more, as the company faces legal action from the EU over delivery shortfalls, and shipments to poorer countries have also been delayed.
The company generated $275m (£197m) in revenues from the Covid vaccine it developed with Oxford University in the first three months of the year and shipped 48m doses to 120 countries through the global vaccine-sharing initiative Covax, 80% of which went to low and middle-income countries. In total, it has supplied more than 300m vaccine doses to more than 165 countries so far this year.
Continue reading...The new administration has signalled a sharp break in foreign policy from the Trump era – but how is that playing globally?
At the opening of Joe Biden’s online climate summit last week, Europe’s relief was was palpable: “It is so good,” gushed the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, “to have the US back on our side.”
Continue reading...UK and EU senior figures hail moment as a ‘new chapter’ of friendly relations after four years of division
The European parliament has given its overwhelming backing to the Brexit trade and security deal, prompting senior figures on both sides to speak of hope for a “new chapter” of friendly relations after four years of division.
Five MEPs voted against the deal, with 660 in favour and 32 abstentions, although in an accompanying resolution the chamber described the referendum result of 23 June 2016 as a “historic mistake”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Torture survivors and lone children stuck in Greece and Italy after Home Office ‘deliberately’ ends cooperation on family reunions
The Home Office has been accused of failing to reunite vulnerable refugees who have the right to join family in the UK under EU law, leaving lone children and torture survivors stranded.
The government faced widespread criticism when it announced that family reunion law would no longer apply after the UK left the EU, and it promised that cases under way on that date would be allowed to proceed.
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