Jersey and Guernsey renew French trade partnership

Monday 11 May 2020

The Governments of Jersey and Guernsey have renewed their partnership agreement with the departmental council of Ille-et-Vilaine for another three years.

The cooperation agreement facilitates joint working in a number of areas, including trade and transport, as well as education and youth, culture and arts.

It also enables discussions to take place on strategic issues such as the impact on the Channel Islands and the port of St Malo of the UK’s departure from the EU. 

Representatives from both Islands were due to attend the annual summit between Guernsey, Jersey, and Ille-et-Vilaine in St. Malo last Wednesday where the agreement would have been signed.

Due to covid-19-related travel restrictions, the parties agreed to go ahead with the signing by video conference instead. 

Pictured: Ille-et-Vilaine is one of Jersey's closest neighbours.

Jersey has been partnered with Ille-et-Vilaine, one of its closest neighbours, for the past 15 years while Guernsey officially joined the partnership in 2017.

“The Minister for External Relations and I had been looking forward to meeting and signing the agreement in person in St Malo today," Chief Minister, Senator John Le Fondré, said. 

"We are pleased that we were still able to renew our partnership despite the covid-19 related challenges that we are all dealing with at present and look forward to continuing our strong relationships and cooperation for at least the next three years.

"This partnership, now celebrating its fifteenth year, shows how effective ongoing and lasting neighbourly cooperation can be, and demonstrates the importance of working together for the benefit of our communities.”

Pictured: The agreement was signed via video conference.

Jean Luc Chenut, Président of Ille-et-Villaine said cooperation with the Channel Islands enables the creation of strong links for the benefit of the population in the three jurisdictions.

"It creates favourable conditions to the development of actions and exchanges, where everyone learns from the others," he added.

"The health crisis hitting the whole world pleads more than ever for a strengthening of cooperation on a European and international scale. In a context of uncertainty and downturn, we are precisely betting on solidarity and exchange between our jurisdictions as a solution to the challenges that the world is currently facing.

"The exemplary cooperation between our jurisdictions is an excellent illustration of the role that communities can play in building relationships of friendship and sharing between populations. Despite the constraints of the moment, we therefore wanted to maintain our annual plenary meeting by video conference.”