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What We’re Watching: Libya delays vote, Sudan’s embattled PM, COVID cures, EU-UK fish deal
Libya election postponed. As many had expected, Libya’s election will in fact be postponed. The vote, the first since psycho autocrat Muammar Qaddafi was ousted in a NATO-backed uprising 10 years ago, was supposed to happen on Friday. Now the country’s electoral board says it will be postponed by a month, until January 24. The move isn’t a surprise: for weeks the two rival governments that run Libya — and their outside backers — have been squabbling over electoral rules and candidate eligibility. The question now is whether delaying the vote genuinely gives the parties time to agree on a process that seems legitimate enough to hold, or whether the move risks further unraveling a fragile and fragmented country. The UN has already raised alarm about rival armed groups setting up positions in and around Tripoli.
Sudan PM to step down? Meanwhile, Libya’s southeastern neighbor Sudan isn’t having an easy time of it either. Beleaguered PM Abdalla Hamdok could soon step down amid protests over the transitional military-civilian government. Hamdok represents the civilian wing under a deal negotiated after the ouster of Omar al-Bashir in 2019. But that agreement has always been shaky — in October, the military staged a coup and arrested Hamdok, only to release and reinstate him a month later under a fresh arrangement. But supporters of the civilians rejected that new pact, and in recent days they have thronged the streets to call for “no partnership, no negotiation, no compromise” with the generals. Sudan can ill-afford another political crisis — one-third of the population is already in need of humanitarian assistance, and the number of Sudanese in outright life-threatening conditions rose 75 percent to 13 million in 2021. Meanwhile, Sudan is also struggling to accommodate refugees from the ongoing war in neighboring Ethiopia, and to navigate the ongoing diplomatic and security challenges posed by the Ethiopian construction of a massive hydroelectric dam upstream on the Nile.
Covid pill pops, Pentagon miracle jab to follow? The FDA on Wednesday approved the first oral, at-home, antiviral medicine for those infected with COVID-19. Pfizer's Paxlovid pill reduces severe illness by up to 90 percent in high-risk people who take it early in the course of their infection. In the coming days US regulators are likely also to greenlight a similar pill made by Merck, called Molnupiravir, though France seems less keen. The arrival of mass produced oral therapeutics is a major turning point in the pandemic, giving doctors and public health systems a powerful tool to reduce mortality from the disease, while also reducing pressures on hospitals. Also this week we learned that the US Military has developed what sounds too good to be true: a vaccine that works not only against all current variants but against all future ones too? Forgive us for thinking this was an Onion headline at first, but we're eager to learn more about Pentagon Pharma's potentially game-changing jab.
UK and EU reach 🐟 deal. The EU and the UK reached a compromise on Wednesday to end a contentious fight over fish. The two sides will share fish stocks next year by reverting to the quotas included in last year's post-Brexit trade agreement. On the plus side, each side now knows exactly how much fish it (and the other) is permitted to catch in 2022, though on the downside environmentalists still say the number is too high. Still, this deal doesn't solve the nasty bilateral UK-France row over who gets to fish which waters in the English Channel. In recent weeks, the UK has shown more willingness to compromise by granting French fishing vessels more licenses to operate in the disputed waters, but Paris wants a lot more. Fishing rights are a big deal in the two countries — expect them to come up as a campaign issue in next year's French presidential election.What We're Watching: A new British-French sea battle
EU calls for fresh migrant pact with UK. Just days after 27 migrants died trying to cross the English Channel from France to the UK, officials from four EU states met Sunday to call for a fresh migration policy agreement with the UK. That came after days of overt acrimony between London and Paris: PM Boris Johnson published a letter — on Twitter, no less — that called for joint patrols and faulted the French for the tragedy. Unsurprisingly, France objected to that, and promptly disinvited the British from the Sunday meeting on migration. The EU pledged to step up aerial patrols of the Channel but said that a boarder framework with the UK is urgently needed. With this much post-Brexit bad blood flowing across the Channel, is that even possible?
The great roe row: UK and France fight over fish... and other stuff
Fish are divisive. Their various odors are distinctive, and though some people enjoy them, others find their slimy exteriors off-putting.
They also can drive a wedge between longtime "friends" like France and the UK. In recent weeks, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Emmanuel Macron have been at loggerheads over questions of fishing access in the English Channel. But is this latest row really about roe?
Le contexte. The fishing issue was one of the final sticking points in the post-Brexit deal, which came into force earlier this year. Now, EU member states' boats need special licenses to fish in British waters, and vice-versa. The French say that they haven't been granted a stack of licenses they're entitled to under the deal – the Brits say they've granted 98 percent of all EU fishing applications. Whatever the truth, about one-third of the licenses France has asked for have not yet been granted.
Rotting fish. Tensions are high, and tempers are running hot. Last week, the French seized a British trawler that it accused of fishing unlawfully in its waters. Macron has also issued a series of threats, including a warning that Paris would tax British exports and delay processing at its ports, which could leave a lucrative stash of fish to rot. Though Macron has backed off for now, things have gotten pretty acrimonious: a leaked letter that French PM Jean Castex wrote to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week reportedly called on London to be "punished" for Brexit.
Still, fish exports account for a measly 0.1 percent of the UK's GDP, and 0.06 percent of France's economy. Clearly, this fight isn't just, or even mainly, about fish.
What's in it for Boris? Johnson has had a rough time of it lately, and he may be hoping that a fight with the French – whom Britons love to hate – might provide a nice distraction from a string of crises causing frustration and angst at home. Supply-chain disruptions fueled by the pandemic and Brexit have British nerves on edge, while energy shortages are sending prices sharply higher. Morale among Britons is low as a frosty winter looms.
Economic conditions may well get worse. As London grapples with post-Brexit shocks, Germany, Europe's biggest economy, says the UK is likely to fall out of the country's top 10 trading partners for the first time in seven decades. That matters much more than any fight over fish.
Moreover, Johnson is locked in a bitter stalemate with the EU as he tries to renegotiate the conditions of the Northern Ireland Protocol – a post-Brexit arrangement that the PM says is disrupting the flow of goods between London and Belfast. Johnson could be buying time with the French drama so he can trigger a legal loophole that would allow him to renege on the Protocol. (However, he likely wants to wait until his international guests leave the COP26 summit in Glasgow.)
The French are always grumpy in October. This was the analysis from a Tory MP on what's aggravating the French so much. (He was slyly referring to the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, a fight in which the British prevailed over Napoleon's navy in 1805.)
A more likely explanation: French domestic politics plays a sizable role in Macron's calculus. As the euroskeptic right gains momentum ahead of French presidential elections in April, Macron is on a mission to make an example of Britain, and to convince voters that France can impose serious costs on those who ditch the EU and disrespect hard-working French fishermen. It's a popular position for a leader facing a tighter-than-hoped-for race for re-election next year.
Macron also likely wants to make the point that France won't be pushed around by a British leader he regards as unserious. After a recent Australian decision to form a security partnership with the US and Britain – and to buy US rather than French submarines – surprised and embarrassed him personally, the French president likely wants to assert that he's no pushover and set a precedent for bigger post-Brexit negotiations to come.
Fish matter, but the real drama lies ahead when the UK tries to maneuver its way out of post-Brexit arrangements it previously committed to. When that happens, Johnson won't have just the French on his case.