EU steps up fight with the UK over … sand-eels

LONDON — Keir Starmer’s Brexit reset just got a little bit more slippery.

The EU on Friday announced it would take the U.K. to court over London’s tough new post-Brexit environmental rules.

Writhing at the center of the row? 447,000 tons of sand-eels.

The slithery creatures are both a favorite food of endangered seabirds and a favorite catch of continental fishing fleets.

Since Brexit, the British government has prioritized the birds. In March this year Rishi Sunak’s now-ousted Conservative government imposed a blanket ban on fishing the species — hoping to burnish its environmental credentials and demonstrate newfound policy flexibility outside the EU.

Conservationists, and — presumably — baby puffins are very happy. EU fishers are outraged, and want Brussels to do something.

On Friday the European Commission announced it was moving to request the establishment of an arbitration tribunal under the dispute settlement mechanism of the EU-U.K. Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).

It means a big legal fight is on the cards — just as the new British government under Starmer is looking to overhaul its relations with the continent in other areas.

“The EU questions the compatibility of this prohibition with the TCA,” the European Commission said in a statement released Friday.

“Consultations concluded without reaching such a mutually agreed solution, to which the EU remains open. The establishment of an arbitration tribunal constitutes the next step of the dispute settlement procedure.”

The statement adds that measures to manage “shared resources” must be “non-discriminatory, proportionate to the objectives and based on the best available scientific evidence.”

The government has been contacted for comment.

The issue looks unlikely to go away, as Brussels has made clear that a new settlement on fishing will have to be part of any new Brexit deals struck with Starmer’s government.

The European Association of Fish Producers Organisations in May described the impact of the ban on catching the snakey fish as “massive,” while the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says it is “vital” and “throws a lifeline to our seabirds.”

It’s a dilemma Starmer will have to navigate carefully. Continuing the policy is likely to be popular with British voters: a government consultation on the policy in 2023 found 95.5 percent of respondents supported a full ban.

But the U.K. prime minister will also want to make sure that the issue doesn’t derail relations with Brussels — and cause the Brexit reset to slip through his fingers.