FARMERS and fishers are facing “extremely challenging” conditions for exporting their products, the External Relations Minister has said – and a UK-EU pact could come too late for some of them.
During States question time yesterday, Deputy Gorst said it would be “incomprehensible” for Jersey, as an island community, to see its fishing industry disappear.
A veterinary agreement between the UK and the EU, the common sanitary and phytosanitary area, could offer hope to Jersey producers.
Leaders from Westminster and Brussels are due to negotiate a set of sanitary standards for plants and animals – which would mean they have to go through fewer or no checks before they can enter the EU.
Since Brexit, Jersey fishers have lost avenues to bring their fish to France – notably losing access to the port of Granville, as a veterinary checking facility has been in the works since 2019. Earlier this year, French media were reporting that the facility still hasn’t opened despite a quarter-of-a-million euros invested.
The SPS agreement would “remove that bureaucracy”, Deputy Gorst said, but was “a long- or medium-term solution”.
He added: “We continue to have conversations with our French counterparts about a more immediate, short-term solution, but that’s taken over seven years and we’ve still got no change there.
“My concern is that for some fishers and some elements of this industry, even the delivery of an SPS agreement will be too late.”
The issue involves several of his colleagues in the Council of Ministers, Deputy Gorst said adding that for Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel “this is the thing that keeps [him] awake at night” and Environment Minister Steve Luce had “done a lot of work” on it.
As negotiations go on, the External Relations Minister said, the UK had taken on board “all of our asks”, he said, namely to “clearly” include Jersey.
Jersey’s Environment Minister would need the resources to deal with standards that could change as the EU and the UK’s rules are tied to each other – or “dynamic alignment”, Deputy Gorst said.
He added: “They will, over a period of time, need to ensure that they’ve got the resource in place because we cannot show that we are… not dynamically aligned. We have given our undertaking to our UK and European partners that we will be, and that we will appropriately resource it.”
