FRANCE has announced it will be calling on the European Commission to initiate legal proceedings in an attempt to get Jersey and the UK to issue additional fishing licences.
Annick Girardin, the country’s Minister of the Sea, said that her nation’s fishermen were still waiting for over 70 access permits to be provided to work in either UK, Jersey or Guernsey waters.
In recent days she has reaffirmed her support for affected skippers, saying that, despite the protracted nature of the dispute, she would continue to fight for them.
Clément Beaune, France’s Europe Minister, said he would now ask the European Commission to convene the Brexit partnership council, which exists to try to solve disagreements related to the departure of the UK from the EU.
He is among a group of politicians which previously threatened to take ‘retaliatory action’ against Jersey and the UK which included reducing the supply, or increasing the cost, of electricity supplied to the Channel Islands.
This was a move described by Jersey’s government as illegal and against EU protocol. Since then there has been little mention of the threats from French politicians.
Speaking to a Normandy newspaper, La Presse de La Manche, Mr Beaune said: ‘We will ask the European Commission in the next few days to convene the partnership council, which is provided for by the Brexit agreement when there is a problem. It is a political body. It has not had to be convened yet. We have to tell the British that this is a European problem, that they are not 100% respecting the agreement and therefore we must have this continuing political pressure.’
In recent weeks, fishermen in Brittany who have not managed to obtain a licence called on their nation’s representatives to urge the EU to step aside in the negotiations with Jersey and Guernsey over fishing licences.
Instead, they want French politicians to be able to speak to the islands directly, referring to the current arrangement as a ‘fiasco’.
According to a report by the Ouest-France newspaper, this sentiment appears to be being echoed by President Emmanuel Macron.
Loïg Chesnais-Girard, the regional president of the Brittany Council, who met the French premier last Friday, said: ‘We asked that negotiations be able to be established directly between professionals and the territories. President Macron also expressed the wish that Europe delegate this negotiation to us, as far as the Channel Islands are concerned.’
