Johnson set for collision with Macron during climate talks

Bloomberg

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron are heading for a full frontal collision in the next 48 hours that threatens to disrupt the United Nations’ climate summit.
Macron’s government is on Tuesday set to introduce additional controls on goods moving across its border with the UK and block British fishing boats from unloading their catches in France in retaliation for what it sees as unjustified restrictions on French trawlers.
At a meeting in Rome on Sunday aimed at defusing the clash, the two leaders couldn’t even agree on what they had said.
While a Macron aide briefed that the two leaders would work together to find a way to deliver licenses to French boats ahead of the deadline, Johnson’s spokesman Max Blain said it was up to Paris to make the first move.
“It will be for the French to decide whether they want to step away from the threats they’ve made in recent days,” Blain told reporters at the Group of 20 summit in the Italian capital. The fight between Britain and France has been one of the biggest issues hanging over the G-20. Although the fishing rights at stake represent only a tiny percentage of each countries’ economy, the ill will that the dispute has generated is threatening to poison much bigger issues, like the European Union’s post-Brexit relationship with the UK and even efforts to tackle climate change.
Most of the G-20 leaders are traveling from Rome to Glasgow on Sunday for another two days of talks where Johnson, as host, is aiming to lock in firmer commitments on cutting carbon emissions. Johnson has said it will be “extremely tough” to secure meaningful pledges from the world’s major emitters in Glasgow and the talks in Rome over the weekend offered little encouragement.
The French trade sanctions on the UK are set to coincide with the leaders’ final day in Glasgow — right when Johnson will be aiming to pin down a deal. The Macron government says that 40% of the detailed French requests for licenses to fish in UK waters are still pending 10 months after the trade agreement was signed — and that requests from other EU members have all been processed.
“For the EU as a whole, around 90% of the expected
licences have been granted, but all the missing ones are French,” France’s EU affairs minister, Clement Beaune, said on Twitter. “When such a significant amount of licences, targeting one country, is missing, it’s not a technical issue, it’s a political choice.” The UK government says it has granted 98% of license applications from EU vessels since Brexit.