Brexit: a small step forward
By Pete North - July 19, 2023
The Times is reporting that goods are now crossing from the EU to the UK at the same speed as they were before Brexit, the boss of the Channel tunnel has said. “Yann Leriche, the managing director of Eurotunnel, said that more than €111 million had been spent on changes at the terminals and on new “Border Pass” technology that allows hauliers to clear customs before arriving at the port. It also removes the need for drivers of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) to produce up to 100 individual pieces of customs paperwork at the tunnel terminals. About 25 per cent of UK-EU trade passes through the tunnel”.
The new web app, which was created by Getlink, the company that operates the Channel tunnel, connects to French and UK customs systems, dramatically reducing queues at the terminals. The vast majority of HGVs are now travelling motorway-to-motorway on each side of the Channel in 90 minutes, including the 35-minute crossing on the shuttle.
Yann Leriche, the managing director of Eurotunnel, said that more than €111 million had been spent on changes at the terminals and on new “Border Pass” technology that allows hauliers to clear customs before arriving at the port. He added: “With the new Border Pass system, hauliers can effectively clear customs before arriving at our terminals. We have used an API [application programming interface] that allows us to connect with French and British authorities. Companies can upload all their documents and be assigned a ‘customs status’ before arriving on the other side of the Channel. “We then have number-plate recognition, which means vehicles are directed appropriately on our terminals. Those that have cleared customs using the Border Pass can use special lanes to move quickly on to a shuttle. Only those that are not using the system must have manual checks.”
I’ve been expecting something like this to make an appearance by now. The trend for some time has been towards fully digital customs systems. The last time we looked at the EU’s Union Customs Code, it was looking to make e-declarations the norm based on international standards. If anything, Brexit has expedited the modernisation of border customs systems. It is not clear, though, if this new development is bidirectional. We can only assume that it will be eventually.
The whole Times report makes interesting reading nonetheless, and we might wonder what the implications of UCC modernisation might be for Northern Ireland. That said, we treat this news with caution because the devil is always in the detail – and this is very much a sales pitch.
Further down The Times’ report (perhaps the substance of the story), they note that transport providers are particularly concerned about the looming introduction of the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES). “The IT system, which will automatically monitor the border-crossing of third-country citizens and replace passport stamps, was due to come into force in May, but was then delayed until November before being further delayed. Sources now expect it to launch after the Paris Olympics next year”.
Doug Bannister, the chief executive of Port of Dover, which is the UK’s busiest port, warned that under the worst-case scenario it could take up to ten minutes to process a single car. It currently takes 90 seconds.“The moment it jumps to ten minutes a car, the whole thing will break down,” he said. However he voiced cautious optimism that “sense will prevail”. He added: “Being positive, in the last six months or so we’ve been working as a nation much better with the European Union. At the moment EES sounds like a very manual process but I believe [we] must be able to make it better than that and make it a digital entity”.
In short, we are not out of the woods yet and it could be that the next phase of Brexit causes the anticipated decline in UK-EU trade. But for all that, it lends credibility to our position during Brexit that being out of the customs union was not insurmountable in terms of border “friction”, and the media (and the entire political class) had the wrong end of the stick in focusing on the customs union. The issue was, and still is, regulatory formalities at the border pertaining to the single market.
Those issues likely won’t register in the debate, not least since audiences now couldn’t be less interested in Brexit technical minutia, and it’s just one of the many pressures facing the UK food and agriculture sector. We’re seeing more closures of small abattoirs and dairy farms selling of their herds, citing regulatory costs, price pressures and energy costs. Brexit may not be the cause of their woes, but it certainly isn’t helping. Certainly not when this administration shows no interest in re-regulating to ease their pain. To a point, as I understand it, the Windsor Framework killed off any notion of divergence from the decrepit EU veterinary system. This is the Brexit deadlock we feared back in 2015 – and very much a consequence of not having a Brexit plan.
