Greg Morel made the comments during an Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel hearing yesterday, days after it was revealed that the European Union had categorised Jersey’s waters as ‘class B’ – meaning that certain species can no longer be directly landed into the EU unless they are fit for immediate human consumption.
This would require the shellfish to be purified and then sent through the inspection post at St Malo before they can be sold in Europe.
The issue has caused a furore among some of Jersey’s fishing community, with some calling on the government to ban foreign whelk and scallop vessels. Speaking during the hearing, Mr Morel said that they had started to look at what was needed to have Jersey’s waters reclassified.
‘There has been no requirement for us to do that in the past,’ he said. ‘Colleagues from Environmental Health have already spoken to laboratories in the UK about what a sampling programme might look like and how it might work and that is ongoing at the moment. We think that could be done in a matter of months rather than a couple of years, as has been the case in the past. But the outcome of that testing regime is still not known until that work is done, so we still may have to overcome whatever issues arise from that regime.’
Responding to a question from Constable Mike Jackson, chairman of the panel, Mr Morel said the EU had asked France to implement the changes. He added that while Island’s waters remained ‘class B’ the only other way fishermen could export to the EU was by purifying their catch locally so it was fit for human consumption before exporting it through a border inspection post located at St Malo.
He said: ‘This issue has come about relatively recently, although we did think it might come about.
‘The EU has had legislation in place for a number of years that prevents the direct landing of certain species, which includes live bivalve molluscs and, strangely, this includes whelks as well, which are gastropod molluscs, not bivalve molluscs.
‘We believe France was told by the EU that they need to bring these regulations in and it does indeed prevent a number of our vessels – the whelk fishermen, who have historically landed into Carteret, and the scallop boats, who generally land in Granville – from doing that.’
