'Reel' chance that fishing spat over... if conditions are fair

Monday 11 April 2022

European politicians are asking for reassurance that conditions attached to French fishing licences are applied in good faith.

As the bitter row that saw Jersey accused of breaking Brexit and a blockade of the island's ports finally appears to be drawing to a close, MEPs have called for no "restrictive and controversial interpretations" of the rules governing where, when and how French vessels can fish in the waters around Jersey and Guernsey in a symbolic resolution approved with 619 votes to 12 on Tuesday.

"We have to understand France and especially those regions who, basically from their shores, can see Jersey and Guernsey. They always had a relationship with them. They used to fish in each other's waters and really live well with each other and then Brexit really reshuffled this relationship," European Fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius told the FT yesterday.

France had previously warned of potential legal action.

Mr Sinkevicius indicated, however, that a truce had been reached. "We have managed to achieve most of the licences that have been requested," he stated, going on to praise the "spirit of good neighbourliness" which he said had "generally prevailed".

The fishing feud erupted in early 2021 after the UK's departure from the EU meant that arrangements for the historically shared waters between Jersey and France had to be redrawn.

Jersey put in place a licensing system, which some French fishers complained was difficult to apply to because too much evidence was needed. Some successful applicants complained that they came with overly stringent conditions.

To ease tensions, Jersey offered to hit pause on the imposition of any conditions attached to each licence, opting to firstly resolve the issue of how many fishers should be granted licences to operate in the island's territorial waters. As of March, 131 French boats were licensed to fish around Jersey – less than half of the roughly 350 able to fish prior to Brexit.

Jersey has previously said that any conditions that apply to the new licences would be based on the same criteria applied under the previous Bay of Granville agreement.

Ministers said last month that they were keen to apply these, but that the UK firstly wanted to present these 'nature and extent' restrictions to the EU along with conditions set by the other Crown Dependencies.

On Jersey's side, one of the significant frustrations was that the rules of the post-Brexit trade agreement between the UK and the EU prevented the island communicating directly with affected fishers just across the water. Instead, evidence of past fishing activity sent by Norman and Breton fishers to officials in Jersey had to go via Paris, Brussels and London, with data often held-up or even lost along the way.

Pictured: French Minister of the Sea Annick Girardin meeting Jersey Ministers online in January.

Last month, Jersey Ministers revealed that this position had changed after French President Emmanuel Macron gave Breton and Norman fishers the green light to communicate with island authorities directly.

Home Affairs Minister Deputy Gregory Guida described this as a "massive step forward".

Pictured top: The fishing dispute was at its most intense last May, when a flotilla of French fishing boats protested outside the Harbour.