Eurocrats lodged the complaint about claims Jersey’s government did not fully inform their French counterparts about the closure of a fish breeding ground for Bream. The order, put forward earlier this year but has recently come to an end, prevented all fishing vessels from fishing in the Bream-spawning grounds to the north of the British Crown Dependency.

It comes after a French vessel was sanctioned by Jersey authorities for working in the area whilst restrictions were in place.

John Young, Jersey’s Environment Minister, added of the complaint: “The order for the bream area was a new one and the EU had complained that we had not given proper notice of it, so there are a number of circumstances that surrounded that.

“You have still got to go through a proper process of giving notification to the EU and they complained formally to the British government, saying we had not done that.”

Jersey and France with support of the European Union have been at loggerheads for the last four months after the Channel Island authorities attempted to introduce new strict post-Brexit licensing laws for fishing.

But France and Britain, who partially manage some foreign relations for the Channel Island, both deployed maritime patrol vessels to the area after a flotilla of French trawlers sailed to Jersey’s main harbour, St Helier, to protest against the new legislation in May.

An amnesty was agreed until September 30 which suspended full implementation of Jersey’s new rules for French vessels.

Officials are currently undertaking negotiations to resolve the licence issue.

Speaking about the deadline, Deputy Young said he was not keen to extend the transition period any further beyond September 30.

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Lord Frost, who supported Jersey ministers in the row has claimed “too many” in Europe had thought there would be no change in fishing arrangements for five-and-a-half years.

Speaking earlier this summer, he added: “We have the right to regulate our own waters in a totally different way, to licence fishing vessels and so on, and obviously getting used to that is at the root of some of the difficulty.”

Lord Frost said he was sure the Jersey situation would “settle down” but made clear: “We don’t choose gunboat diplomacy but obviously we were reacting to a demonstration that could have caused severe practical problems for Jersey, and it didn’t cause any problems, and I like to think that our naval presence was part of that.”