in the last hour eu ambassadors have
unanimously approved the provisional
application of the eu uk
post-brexit trade deal that was agreed
on christmas day the ambassadors of all
27
eu member states have provisionally
accepted the
trade and cooperation agreement on
wednesday the president
of the eu council shall michelle and the
president of the eu commission
ursula vonderlaan are expected to
officially sign off on the trade
agreement
but that has to be ratified in a
european parliament vote
which will be early next year on
thursday mps will vote on the deal
in the uk parliament it all means that
tariff-free trade will be provisionally
allowed
after britain leaves the eu single
market at the new year
well let's get the very latest from our
brussels correspondent kevin
connolly and uh so kevin just explain
exactly what this means eu ambassadors
unanimously approving the application of
the deal
yeah i suppose the best way of looking
at this is frankly it would have been
amazing if they
have not done so of course the member
state governments the ambassadors
themselves
have been kept in the loop at every
stage of the negotiations so
this is really a very formal
ratification
it simply means that the deal is working
its way through the
eu's layers of decision making and no
one has ever accused the eu
of not having enough decision-making
layers so there are a few more
bureaucratic bits and pieces to do this
week
and then there is an event of some
political importance to come
at some point we think quite early in
the new year when the european
parliament will be asked to approve it
because of course the european
parliament
eventually in december said look it's
getting too late in december for us
to do this officially before the new
year
that is why we have what's called
provisional application
that's the eu member states doing the
deal and saying to the european
parliament
that your consideration will come a bit
later in the process a few weeks down
the road
all right kevin thank you very much
indeed kevin connolly there for us in
brussels
well fishermen continue to insist that
they will be absolutely worse off as a
result of the uk's
post-brexit trade deal as according to
the chair of the national federation of
fishermen's organizations
andrew locker said he was angry and
disappointed
that the industry had been in his words
betrayed by boris johnson
now that has been rejected by cabinet
office minister michael gove
who said today that the uk is in a
stronger position
than it was in the site the eu and in
the common fisheries policy so who is
right
uh let's talk to our reality check
correspondent chris morris who's with me
now and chris fisher is not a huge part
of the uk
economy but very central to this brexit
trade deal and the talks right up until
the last moment
yeah i mean we know they were one of the
very last issues to be resolved because
of the political sensitivities not just
in the uk but in places like france as
well where
you know emmanuel macron has a
presidential election to fight next year
and so
um yes uh fishing was important
what's was was it a good deal for the uk
fishing fleet well
i think when michael gove says they're
in a much better position to begin with
it is only pretty marginal and let's
look at some of the numbers about what
the deal actually
said to begin with uh there's going to
be
the the argument towards the end of the
negotiation was the size of the cut
for eu boats fishing in uk waters and
it's going to be a
25 cut in the amount of fish they can
catch
and that will be phased in over this
five and a half year transition period
which means that you know eu boats are
still going to be catching quite a lot
of fish
in uk waters the argument for that is
well we don't actually have the boats to
catch them at the moment and the
government is saying
we're going to put in money to increase
the size of the fishing fleet over that
period
but it's not i suppose if you like an
instant
taking back control of all uk waters and
that's why some fishermen are a bit
unhappy
yeah and michael gave was saying well
the eu wanted a transition period of i
think 14 years and
they they haggled um the uk offered at
three and they ended up with five and a
half so he was saying
actually that wasn't a bad deal so if
you look at the numbers
on the top line there the uk wanted an
80 cut for uk boats and the u and the eu
offered 18 so it's much nearer the eu
position
on the length of the transition it's
near the uk position so a bit of give
and take
it's what happens after the five and a
half year transition this is interesting
if you like because that's when it
reverts to annual negotiations on access
to fishing waters
and in theory at that point the uk can
say right we're going to shut out
eu boats altogether we're gonna take
back all our quota that's it
but there is a presumption in this deal
it's written into the deal
that the 25 cut is going to continue for
a while
and the uk has to make a choice to
change that
if it does so then there is the
opportunity again written into the deal
that for example tariffs could be put on
our fish
exports to the eu market or potentially
on
a tariff on other things that we sell to
the eu as well so
it's it's it's in fish we see what we
see in the whole deal yes we've won in
theory
the sovereignty the right to go our own
way but there will be a price to pay for
it
and when boris johnson announced the
deal he wore a tie with fish on it um
sort of implying it was a victory on
fisheries uh but but
but fishing leaders are saying they've
been betrayed so
are they right to be that angry i think
the problem is some of the rhetoric
during the referendum and after
suggested we're taking back control of
our fishing waters 100
straight away end of story in reality
that was never going to happen
uh but i think one of the reasons
they're angry i mean for example one of
the things the examples was given
quite a lot was was the amount of cod
that gets caught by eu boats
in the eastern english channel it's 90
percent of all the cod
in five and a half years time it's still
going to be 90
so there are specific species where
we've done well
other species it's a pretty small amount
of fish actually but that's why people
are angry and i think the other thing
is that a lot of the fishermen in small
boats who fished near into the shore
were hoping the eu boats would be would
be kicked out if you like of
waters up to 12 miles from the uk
coastline and that's not the case eu
boats are still in some circumstances
going to be able to continue fishing in
those waters so most of the benefits for
the uk fishing fleets
are going to be for the big trawlers
some of which actually even though their
british boats are owned by foreign
companies
and i think a lot of the smaller
fishermen are thinking that they've been
a bit forgotten
chris thank you very much indeed chris
morris there