Post-Brexit fishing dispute: Paris threatens to “cut” electricity deliveries to the British island of Jersey

The post-Brexit agreement, reached in extremis at the end of last year between London and Brussels, provides that European fishermen can continue to work in certain British waters on condition that they obtain a license, granted if they can prove that they fished there before. In the still disputed fishing areas, London and Jersey have granted a total of just over 200 definitive licenses, while Paris is still asking for 244. The island of Jersey is located just a few kilometers from the Normandy coast.

“Reduce deliveries [d’électricité à Jersey] it is possible, cut the current to every inhabitant of Jersey this winter, it will not happen “, declared the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, on the channel BFMTV. The agreement obtained by the EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, on Brexit provides for an “energy export agreement”, he noted. “So we can regulate the flow. I don’t want it to come to that. This is one of the political possibilities.”

On Thursday, Jersey’s Foreign Minister, Ian Gorst, denounced the “unacceptable” and “disproportionate” threats from France, which had hinted that it could cut off the power to the Channel Island, fed by submarine cables leaving from the French coasts.

“This would amount to cutting off the supply of energy to 108,000 islanders, to our hospital and to our schools,” he stressed. He assured that Jersey had a back-up plan in case this threat was carried out.

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