Fishing privilege for Bruges
The fishing privilege for Bruges has granted the city of Bruges the right to fish with 50 boats in British coastal waters since 1666. The right goes back to a privilege given to the city by King Charles II of England from the House of Stuart . Charles II lived in Bruges for three years from 1656 to 1659 during his exile on the European continent before returning to London in 1660. As a thank you for the hospitality, he issued the fishing privilege in 1666, which has not been revoked to this day, although its validity has been questioned several times in different centuries, most recently in connection with Brexit , when the United Kingdom left the EU internal market in 2016.
history
After Karl had left the insecure kingdom as Crown Prince of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1646, he was proclaimed King of England in Jersey after the beheading of his father Charles I in 1649 . However, while England was under the rule of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell , Charles II was able to ascend the throne of Scotland, but had to flee to France after a defeat by Cromwell in 1651. After further stays in The Hague , Aachen and Cologne , Charles II went to Brussels in 1656 , where the Spanish King Philip IV , ruler of the Spanish Netherlands, offered him a place to stay in Bruges. Charles II lived there incognito with his two brothers and during the three years of his stay became a respected member of the city's civil society . He became the patron of several guilds . In 1659, after the death of Oliver Cromwell and the abdication of his son Richard Cromwell as lord protector, Charles II returned to England via The Hague and Brussels, where he was welcomed as king in 1660.
In 1666, Marc Arrazola de Oñate (also written Marc d'Ognate), a friend of Charles II from his time in Brussels, who was also able to speak English through his mother and who had access to important circles in Brussels through his father, was considered extraordinary Ambassador Philip IV appointed to sign trade deals with the UK. All of these contracts have been lost, but the city of Bruges still has evidence of perpetual fishing rights in British waters.
Valid in the 19th century
Around 1849 the first negotiations between the Kingdom of Belgium, which was founded in 1830, and Great Britain regarding fishing rights began. The United Kingdom claimed a three-mile zone off its coast. However, Belgian fishermen were used to fishing off the coast of Scotland. For example, the former Belgian Prime Minister Sylvain Van de Weyer was sent to London as a special ambassador to maintain the status quo for Belgian fishermen . The negotiations were supported on the Belgian side by the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Bruges, who referred to the fishing privilege of the city of Bruges in a letter to the Belgian Foreign Minister Constant-Ernest d'Hoffschmidt . The British were surprised by the existence of this document, but they did not reject the request. In a letter to Van de Weyer, the British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston stated that a proper court in Great Britain must first confirm the validity of the fishing privilege.
In Belgium, however, they shied away from the cost of legal action. In addition, they were more interested in an agreement for all Belgian fishermen than in a privilege for Bruges. Belgium signed a fisheries treaty with Great Britain in 1852, giving all fishermen in both countries equal rights. In the debate in the Belgian Parliament, however, it was expressly pointed out that this contract was concluded without prejudice to the special rights that the fishermen in Bruges could still exercise through the privilege of Charles II.
Valid in the 20th century
In 1963 the Belgian Victor Depaepe, a member of the College of Mayors and Aldermen of Bruges, wrote to the Belgian and British Prime Ministers and the Queen informing them that he wanted to confirm the validity of the 1666 privilege. On July 8, 1963, his ship was seized by the Royal Navy in British waters near Seaford in East Sussex . However, no charges were brought. After 30 years it became known that the Department of Agriculture had been ordered not to bring proceedings before a court because the rights might be enforceable.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Belgiës troef voor de United Kingdom and Gibraltar European Union membership referendum: eeuwenoud koninklijk privilege. NOS , July 6, 2017, accessed July 10, 2017.
literature
- Lieuwe van Aitzema : History of verhael van saken van Staet en Oorlogh, in, ende omtrent de Vereenigde Nederlanden (1655–1671). The Hague 1657–1671.
- A. de Behault de Dornon: Bruges, séjour d'exil des rois d'Angleterre Edouard IV (1471) et Charles II (1656-1658) Bruges, 1931.
- A. de Behault de Dornon: Les privileges octroyeés en 1666 par Charles II, roi d'Angleterre aux pêcheurs de Bruges. Bulletin de l'académie royale d'Archéologie de Belgique, Part IV, 1909, pp. 145 ff.
- J. de Breucker: L'extension des limites de pêche et le régime juridisque de la pêche en Mer du Nord. ADSP, 3, 1963, pp. 115-131.