The cross-Channel ferry dispute that caused chaos around Calais in northern France and disrupted British freight and holidaymakers throughout the summer appears to have been resolved, after French workers struck a deal with Eurotunnel and the Danish shipping company DFDS Seaways.
The agreement means two ships occupied by staff from the defunct MyFerryLink service should now be released and brought into the DFDS fleet.
The ferries, the Rodin and Berlioz, were operated by French crew at SCOP-SeaFrance, an independent company working on behalf of the Eurotunnel-owned MyFerryLink. After a competition ruling forced Eurotunnel to end the sailings, crew occupied the ships before they could be leased to DFDS, in protest at planned job cuts.
The deal would save 402 of the 487 threatened redundancies, including a commitment from DFDS to employ 202 of the crew and use the two French ships on its main Dover to Calais crossing, to ensure what the Danish firm called a “truly Anglo-French partnership”.
DFDS will operate three ships from Dover to Calais and three to Dunkirk, allowing more frequent services, once Eurotunnel is able to hand them over. The deal, reached in negotiations that involved the French transport minister and due to be presented to the crews by union leaders on Tuesday afternoon, would see the occupying crew leave on Wednesday.
Carsten Jensen, senior vice-president at DFDS, said: “This ends a long period of uncertainty for both our employees and our customers on the Channel as this agreement gives us the platform needed to create a sustainable ferry service on the Channel. It also means that we have an equal number of French- and UK-flagged ships on the Channel, making the service a truly Anglo-French partnership, which we believe is in everyone’s best interests.”
Eurotunnel’s director of public affairs, John Keefe, said: “It’s really good news for the business. Obviously we’d prefer to be operating these ships ourselves, but with capacity back on the Channel ferry routes, traffic is able to flow again. It means the infrastructure leading to the ports won’t be blocked, and we can get traffic away on Eurotunnel.”
Keefe said the reduction in ferry services had caused queues to cross the Channel even before the extra disruption from French workers. The dispute resulted in disruption throughout the summer, and as recently as this Monday, a bank holiday in most of the UK, P&O ferries were delayed after the SCOP-SeaFrance crews blocked the port of Calais. In earlier protests, ferry workers burned tyres on the roads leading to Calais, bringing some services to a standstill, and in one incident, a distress flare was fired at an incoming DFDS ship at Calais.
Huge tailbacks of lorries on British roads queued to cross the Channel at Dover, parked on motorway hard shoulders in Operation Stack. Migrants at Calais attempting to reach the UK added to the chaos by attempting to take advantage of the halted traffic to hide in vehicles or enter the Channel tunnel.
