Stéphane Séjourné, president of the Renew group in the European Parliament was the guest of “8:30 am franceinfo”, Friday December 19, 2021. Fishing licenses, civil liberties in Europe … He answers questions from Lorrain Sénéchal and Neila Latrous.
Fishing licenses: “Boris Johnson should never be trusted”
France is preparing to compensate fishing vessels that find themselves unlicensed with Brexit, which is considered by French fishermen as a “fiasco”. Stéphane Séjourné affirms that this compensation mechanism “was planned from the start of negotiations with the British on Brexit”. So are retaliatory measures still on the table? “Nothing should be ruled out at this stage”, he said.
“You should never trust Boris Johnson, that’s the lesson I learned”, says Stéphane Séjourné. “France must be firm”, he adds. But for Stéphane Séjourné, if we have to be firm, “We must be firm at 27 and therefore the European Commission must also help us to hold these agreements.”
Civil liberties in Europe: “The planned sanctions have never been applied”
“The European Union must be firm, including with its members”, says Stéphane Séjourné. A firmness displayed as France will take the rotating presidency of the European Union in January and will have to deal with several sensitive subjects including the migration crisis on the border with Poland, or the decline of the rule of law within the EU in Hungary and Poland.
According to the president of the Renew group in the European Parliament, along with Poland and Hungary, “We must differentiate two issues: there are the subjects of rule of law and democracy. It is the independence of justice, the freedom of the press, it is our ability to influence the fundamentals of public freedoms which are a requirement for the 27 Member States “. And, recalls the MEP LREM, “for that there are sanctions which are envisaged. Today the difficulty of the Europeans is that part of the European political class is almost more afraid of the play of possible empty chairs in Europe because it is there. unanimity of the council prevails, and a member state can block the work of the council “. So for Stéphane Séjourné, “We need to succeed in this mechanism to give credibility to our sanctions, which today have never been applied.”
Find the entire “8h30 franceinfo” of Friday, November 19, 2021: