Chris Le Masurier, from the Jersey Oyster Company, who exports around 1,000 tonnes of produce into Europe each year, spoke as the industry moved into one of the most important and lucrative times of the season in the run up to Christmas.
The current licence amnesty period, which allows some French fishermen to operate in Jersey waters virtually restriction-free, has been extended twice but is due to expire at the end of the month.
Mr Le Masurier said: ‘I have said to the marine resources department that we are missing a trick here. We need to be turning this and using this delivery of licences to our advantage and to the benefit of Jersey. We need to say Jersey will deliver the licences if we get written assurance from the French Fisheries Minister on a couple of points – firstly, that Jersey boats can access French ports to land as they did before, and that freight boats can land into France as they have previously done.
‘[Secondly] a border inspection post for goods in Granville. We are currently forced to go to St Malo [to land oysters], whereas we have previously gone to Granville, which is closer and it is more manageable for us to work.’
Mr Le Masurier added that since Brexit, some Jersey-caught seafood items were being treated as an inferior product by the EU, leading to certain shellfish needing to be purified before sale or declared not fit for human consumption. This rule is not applied to French fishermen, who were catching the same species in the same water. He called for a level playing field to be introduced.
‘These points would be advantageous to Jersey and it should be a condition of delivering those licences. It would fit better with us that we are getting something back,’ he said.
This week, Environment Minister John Young hinted that the amnesty period in which French fishermen could submit data to obtain a licence to operate in Jersey waters could be extended yet again in an effort to avoid exacerbating tensions with French fishermen.
But Mr Le Masurier said he thought there was little hope of imposing the new post-Brexit regime in a matter of months, when the previous agreement – the Granville Bay Treaty – had taken ten years to negotiate.
‘I wholeheartedly believe they should throw away this temporary idea of “amnesty for three months at a time”. The Granville Bay Treaty took ten years to negotiate, involving a lot sitting around a table, consultation and arbitration.
‘I would say revert to the rules of the Granville Bay Treaty until such a time as is replaced with something else that has been agreed with proper consultation. Forget about trying to sort something out in three months,’ he said.
