Originally Posted by JohnHarris
Brian,

In the recent fishing dispute over French access etc...the issue was raised about France being the main supplier of electricity to Jersey and potentially cutting off supplies to Jersey. Are those newspaper reports correct and what is happening (if anything) to Jersey to become more self sufficient/reduce reliance on France.



John, Jersey, by statute has to have sufficient generation power to meet its own needs, so the threat to cut off supplies would not have affected continuity of power here. We are self sufficient in generation capacity, although I had not realised that we had de-commissioned our steam turbines some years back and are now reliant on gas-turbines and diesel sets. The cost of running this sort of kit would have been significant of course.

In view of Brexit, there had been idle talk here to try and move from reliance of trade with the UK. But this idea of trade with France was damaged by the appalling Sabre rattling of the French politicians threatening to cut off supply, but also by the near continuous disruption to the St Malo / St Helier sea route by French industrial action and surprisingly, St Malo is not actually a freight port and would have problems handling the 100,000 tons of stuff that comes in from the UK.

The fishing dispute was bought to a head by Brexit but predated that by many years. it is a complex topic but one that goes back to the "Grainville Bay Agreement" This gave the right to license French boats to fish Jersey waters to the Normandy authorities, these authorities also receiving the revenue from those licenses! This has now changed and we issue the licenses, but are still currently in a state of flux. For example Jersey fishermen are not allowed to fish for Bream in the Jersey Bream spawning area, the French are, and do. However the fact that French fishing boats landing Jersey fish, do not have to have the catch vetted for health, but the Jersey boats landing their Jersey fish do, is down to Brexit. Odd really as were never members of the EU. Some cynics may say that it is a revenge act, but far from me...

Brian

Jersey and Spain