French fishermen may get caught in Brexit net

While Britain's exit is expected to have an limited overall impact on the EU, offshore fishermen based in northern France face the grim prospect of losing access to their best waters.
If the yet to be negotiated Brexit terms mean French fishermen must stay out of British waters "one might as well sell the ship", said Xavier Perrotte, the second in command of the Remember, a 23-metre (75-foot) trawler.
The Remember with its eight-man crew sails the roughly 100 kilometers (60 miles) from its home port of Cherbourg in Normandy to waters off the English coast where it pulls in half of its catch.
France's national fishermen's association has already warned the government that Brexit could "very strongly impact" the Brittany, Normandy and northern regions.
Not all fishermen will be impacted, however.
Ships less than 12 meters rarely leave French territorial waters, except in the narrowest parts of the Channel, and they make up 80 percent of the national fleet according to official data.
But according to catch, the big boats play a big role.
At Cherbourg, big trawlers account for two-thirds of the fish landed.
Worries are acute in ports where large trawlers dock, particularly in Boulogne-sur-mer, France's top fishing port that hosts ships as long as 50 meters.
"If tomorrow we lose our historical access to British waters, that will sound the end of French fishing in Boulogne — the impact will be enormous," said Bruno Margolle, head of the CME regional fishing cooperative.
In the neighboring Calais region where the Channel narrows to as close as 28 kilometers, they are "very worried", said Olivier Lepretre, president of the local fishing council.
"If the British close their waters, we will lose important fishing grounds that account for 70 percent of our catch," he said.
Even where the Channel is wider, French trawlers could lose a lot: Currently they can sail as close as six nautical miles (11 kilometers) to the British coast, while British ships can't fish closer than 22 kilometers to the French coast.
Sebastien Sagot, owner of a 24-meter trawler based at Treport, worries about a "big drop in revenues" if he can no longer fish in British waters.
Fishing further out in the North Sea would cost more in fuel and often requires different equipment, some of which is not authorized in French waters.
"There is no fallback solution," said Jean-Pierre Le Visage, director of Scapeche, operator of France's largest commercial fishing fleet.
"It is too early to say if the consequences will be horrendous" but "if British waters are closed then we will lose 70 to 80 percent of our volumes" he said.
Le Visage said that at the Brittany port of Lorient, its main base, some 9,500 out of the 11,000 tons of fish it landed there were caught in British waters.
Across the region, fishermen hope the negotiations on Britain's EU exit result in a reasonable deal.
Those hopes are largely based on the need of Britain to sell its catch in European markets.
"There are products that the British fish but don't eat, and the base tariff to get into the European market is 24 percent," said Richard Brouzes, who heads up the fishermen association in Normandy.
"The idea is to say to them: 'You get access to our markets, we get access to your waters'".

Source: Arab News