The UK and EU have reached a last-minute deal over a significant reset to relations after a breakthrough on fishing rights and checks on food and other agricultural products.
Under the agreement, finalised just a few hours before a crunch summit in London, Brussels is has dropped demands to link the duration of an agreement over food and agricultural goods with fishing rights.
According to EU sources, access to British fishing waters will be granted until the end of June 2038, an extension of 12 years. But in return, the agreement on easier checks for food, animal and other agricultural products, known as sanitary and phytosanitary goods (SPS), will be indefinite.
The length of the fishing rights deal brought criticism from the Conservatives and Reform UK. However, Downing Street pushed back against EU demands for a time-limited SPS deal and a permanent arrangement on fishing, and will argue UK aims have been achieved.
One UK official said the deal would bring no change to current UK access to fish, or changes to British or EU quotas, and thus protected fishing communities.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said the 12-year span of the deal showed the UK was “a rule-taker from Brussels once again”.
A UK government official said the deal for the UK fishing industry was about “protecting their rights and long-term security instead of the merry-go-round of yearly renegotiations that would never plausibly see EU boats leave UK waters”.
The summit, during which Keir Starmer will host the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, at Lancaster House in central London, it also expected to set out closer defence cooperation, including potentially better access to EU defence funding for UK companies, and ways to allow UK travellers entering the EU quicker access via e-passport gates.
A series of other issues have not been finalised, including the shape of any mutual youth mobility scheme, with arguments continuing about the UK’s insistence that the numbers coming in should be capped, which the EU opposes.
Another complication with the youth mobility scheme is understood to be linked to a EU demand that the UK returns to the Erasmus+ university and vocational training exchange scheme.
UK officials are concerned that an automatic return to the programme would mean EU citizens could be eligible to pay lower domestic fees at UK universities, rather than the high rat echarged to overseas students, which could cost the sector.
EU sources said they were “optimistic” an arrangement could nonetheless be struck, possibly in the next few months.
In her initial reaction to reported details of the deal, Badenoch tweeted: “12 years access to British waters is three times longer than the govt wanted. We’re becoming a rule-taker from Brussels once again. And with no details on any cap or time limits on youth mobility, fears of free movement returning will only increase. This is very concerning.”
Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said Britain should not get embroiled in “the Brexit wars of the past”, comparing Badenoch and Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, to “dinosaurs fighting old battles”.
While Downing Street has said the meeting in London is part of a process, not a single event, with talks able to continue on any subject that is not agreed, the overnight negotiations have resembled the sometimes chaotic talks on the original Brexit departure.
As well as fishing and simpler processes for food exports to and from the EU, talks have focused on better access to EU defence funding for UK companies, the youth mobility scheme, and ways to allow UK travellers entering the EU quicker access via e-passport gates.
Fishing was a totemic part of much of the original Brexit talks, despite the industry’s relatively low contribution to UK GDP, and the Conservatives and Reform UK have warned against any deal which, in their view, would sell out the UK fishing fleet.
Mike Cohen, the chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said on Monday morning that reaction in the industry would depend on what had been secured in return for any longer-term access to UK waters.
“If a deal has been done for a longer term, for me the question is: what have we achieved in return for that?” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “If we’ve gained some benefit for the fishing industry, for fishing communities, then that could be a deal worth doing. It’s all going to be about the details.
“If we’ve got nothing in return for that, for the fishermen and their businesses, the communities that depend on them, then that would have been a very poor deal from our point of view.”
