Brexit.

Innula Zenovka

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A lengthy account of the current problems with NI border controls, from the Irish side


And Matthew Parris' take


Evernote link because paywall
 

Sid

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It shows where a record braking fast negotiated agreement leads to.
We are not even three months into the real Brexit and look were we stand.
Problems over Northern Ireland (surprise surprise), a lot of EU hauliers ain't keen to transport goods to the UK because of all the extra paperwork, and I think huge problems with food transport to the UK over the North Sea ahead.

Far more than half (some expert estimate up to 80%) of all the food in the UK is imported.
Especially fresh vegetables, fruits like strawberries and flowers can't have a day or more of delay. Freshness is key so smooth just-in-time delivery is necessary.
Hopefully thinks work out.
For the EU it could 'only' mean the lost of a lot of money, but for the UK it could become troublesome for their food supply.
 
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Innula Zenovka

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It shows where a record braking fast negotiated agreement leads to.
We are not even three months into the real Brexit and look were we stand.
Problems over Northern Ireland (surprise surprise), a lot of EU hauliers ain't keen to transport goods to the UK because of all the extra paperwork, and I think huge problems with food transport to the UK over the North Sea ahead.

Far more than half (some expert estimate up to 80%) of all the food in the UK is imported.
Especially fresh vegetables, fruits like strawberries and flowers can't have a day or more of delay. Freshness is key so smooth just-in-time delivery is necessary.
Hopefully thinks work out.
For the EU it could 'only' mean the lost of a lot of money, but for the UK it could become troublesome for their food supply.
I can't help but think that seeing both the British government and those of individual member states imposing artificial barriers to prevent their citizens conducting their lives and businesses as they had been doing perfectly happily before for the last 30 or 40 years is going to raise questions in their minds about the legitimate role of government.

I mean, obviously you have to have random customs checks to try to intercept attempts to smuggle drugs or people, but I'd certainly think that, between them, the major British supermarkets and their EU suppliers can be trusted to comply with all relevant British regulations without extra checks, so I don't see why HMG wants to impede my attempts to buy fresh fruit and vegetables or with Tesco and M&S trying to turn an honest profit by selling me some.
 
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Khamon

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Sovereignty. HMG seem to believe that having a working trade agreement with the EU equates to Brussels telling the UK what to do. That will anger the Leavers and so must be avoided at all cost.
 

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I can't help but think that seeing both the British government and those of individual member states imposing artificial barriers to prevent their citizens conducting their lives and businesses as they had been doing perfectly happily before for the last 30 or 40 years is going to raise questions in their minds about the legitimate role of government.

I mean, obviously you have to have random customs checks to try to intercept attempts to smuggle drugs or people, but I'd certainly think that, between them, the major British supermarkets and their EU suppliers can be trusted to comply with all relevant British regulations without extra checks, so I don't see why HMG wants to impede my attempts to buy fresh fruit and vegetables or with Tesco and M&S trying to turn an honest profit by selling me some.
Somewhere around 1% of the containers, that come in through the harbor of Rotterdam from all over the world into the EU, are physically checked. But the paperwork has to be in good nick.
100% physical checks would totally be impossible. Goods would be rotting and rusting away while waiting for physical checking,

Same before the Schengen agreement, most of the times when I visited Germany or Belgium, I just got waved through. No passport checks, nothing.
The UK was stricter in those days, with a stamp in the passport with entrance date and luggage checks.

What the EU fears, is that the UK left the EU mainly to try and undercut the EU markets.
That is the main reason that checks are needed, to guarantee a level playing field.
We can't have it that goods that we don't want from other countries (like American chickens) or that are from countries we have high import barriers with, are shipped trough the UK into the EU.

First example of 'foul play' was there already IMHO, when the extra AstraZeneca batch that was originally intended for the EU went trough the Northern Ireland route into the UK so it would not have to be declared (yet).
 
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Innula Zenovka

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Somewhere around 1% of the containers, that come in through the harbor of Rotterdam from all over the world into the EU, are physically checked. But the paperwork has to be in good nick.
100% physical checks would totally be impossible. Goods would be rotting and rusting away while waiting for physical checking,
Same before Schengen, most of the times I visited Germany or Belgium, I just got waved through. No passport checks, nothing.
The UK was stricter in those days, with a stamp in the passport with entrance date and luggage checks.

What the EU fears, is that the UK left the EU mainly to try and undercut the EU markets.
That is the main reason that checks are needed, to guarantee a level playing field.
We can't have it that goods that we don't want from other countries (like American chickens) or that are from countries we have high import barriers with, are shipped trough the UK into the EU.

First example of 'foul play' was there already IMHO, when the extra AstraZeneca batch that was originally intended for the EU went trough the Northern Ireland route into the UK so it would not have to be declared (yet).
Sure, but I'm distinguishing between what the EU and British governments fear in general people may do, and what actual individuals and businesses are, in fact, doing, or trying to do.

Since there's absolutely no reason to suspect that Marks & Spencer's Dutch suppliers are supplying M&S with anything other than the same products as they were before, why should the British government stand in their way?

I imagine that EU customers of British suppliers probably feel the same way, but that's between them, their governments and the EU.

However, while I understand why the EU needs to impose checks, I don't understand why the UK does. It's not as if we fear the EU are going to be dumping products, after all.
 

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Of course the UK could simply skip all checks, but the paperwork needed is still listed in in the agreement.
So all the health certificates on fresh products and all the other needed paperwork as described in the agreement still would have to be obtained.

And by totally not checking, I think it would weaken the UK's position in future trade negotiation rounds.
How to negotiate loosening the rules with the EU, when your side has never enforced the existing ones in the first place?
 

Innula Zenovka

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Of course the UK could simply skip all checks, but the paperwork needed is still listed in in the agreement.
So all the health certificates on fresh products and all the other needed paperwork as described in the agreement still would have to be obtained.

And by totally not checking, I think it would weaken the UK's position in future trade negotiation rounds.
How to negotiate loosening the rules with the EU, when your side has never enforced the existing ones in the first place?
Yes, but since no one seriously believes that Dutch exporters are going to depart from their existing standards, or that British supermarkets (who are still bound by the same British law enacting EU standards as they were last year) are going to ask them to, the whole exercise seems somewhat pointless.

I realise why governments have to do it, or think they do, but once you start looking at the whole process as contracts between customers and suppliers rather than as agreements between countries, it starts to look rather different, or it does to me.

I think my basic point is that both sides seem to be spending a great deal of time and money erecting artificial barriers simply to prove that they can.

Since both sides are, at least for the time being, adhering to the same standards as they did in the past, and British supermarkets would risk prosecution and their customers' wrath if they departed from them, I don't really see why either the EU or the UK is spending a lot of time and money fixing a non-problem "because sovereignty."

Is there any reason for either you or me to be dissatisfied with whatever quality control procedures the retailers we regularly use have in place? If not, from what are our respective governments protecting us when they impose new rules on the import of Scottish salmon or Dutch tomatoes?
 

Sid

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Not the new rules that are agreed are the real problem.
Both the EU and the UK have all kinds of different rules and regulations with all kinds of countries all over the world.
But they are all implemented step by step over a long periods of time.

It is the short transition period, that completely was used to kick the can as long as possible down the road instead of agree on rules and implement the ones that are agreed, that resulted in these bottlenecks.
The transition period should have been extended at least one or two years after the Christmas Eve agreement, to get facilities in place, train new needed staff, run trails, inform the people involved.
But as always, it takes two to tango.
HMG was not interested.

Is there any reason for either you or me to be dissatisfied with whatever quality control procedures the retailers we regularly use have in place? If not, from what are our respective governments protecting us when they impose new rules on the import of Scottish salmon or Dutch tomatoes?
It is never about the common people. They only want high quality fresh food for reasonable prices.

The magic words here are trust and economy.
Trust between countries, or better the lack of it, and attempts to find possibillities to make an extra €,$ or £ .
The UK seems to have been frustrated about the EU hindering their economic chances during their membership.
The EU seems to be afraid that the UK will attempt to undercut the market and flood the EU with products they don't agree with.
 

Innula Zenovka

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Not the new rules that are agreed are the real problem.
Both the EU and the UK have all kinds of different rules and regulations with all kinds of countries all over the world.
But they are all implemented step by step over a long periods of time.

It is the short transition period, that completely was used to kick the can as long as possible down the road instead of agree on rules and implement the ones that are agreed, that resulted in these bottlenecks.
The transition period should have been extended at least one or two years after the Christmas Eve agreement, to get facilities in place, train new needed staff, run trails, inform the people involved.
But as always, it takes two to tango.
HMG was not interested.



It is never about the common people. They only want high quality fresh food for reasonable prices.

The magic words here are trust and economy.
Trust between countries, or better the lack of it, and attempts to find possibillities to make an extra €,$ or £ .
The UK seems to have been frustrated about the EU hindering their economic chances during their membership.
The EU seems to be afraid that the UK will attempt to undercut the market and flood the EU with products they don't agree with.
I understand why both the EU and the UK would want to perform careful checks on goods arriving from particular countries, where different product standards apply.

However, when you know that the same standards do, in practice, apply, and when you're dealing with established and trusted supply chains (as you are with the big supermarkets) then I don't see what the practical need is for the checks, since the supermarkets' buyers and QA testers can be trusted to do at least as thorough a job as HM Customs, not least because they face civil and criminal prosecution if they don't.

So I don't see that the customer is being protected here, and nor do I quite see from what the producers are being protected either -- what threat do UK farming practices currently present to EU farmers, retailers and consumers, or vice versa?

If the answer is "at the moment, none, but we fear that, at some future date, they might do," then why not cross that bridge if and when we come to it?

I see the necessity of ensuring a level playing field, but since we know the playing field is level, at least at the moment, why the great rush to impose burdensome checks to demonstrate what we already know and what we know, in practice, is likely to remain the case for the foreseeable future? If individual problems arise, as they do from time to time, with BSE or horse meat being sold as beef, then there are already perfectly adequate safeguards in place.

If the UK looked like signing a trade deal with the US before the EU does, I could see the problem, but since that's not going to happen, it's not an issue and isn't likely to become one.

Similarly, I don't see why the UK would think that the threat of people smuggling sub-standard products from Russia or Turkey, for example, into the UK via the EU are any greater now than they were this time last year, so why do we need to impose any more stringent checks than we did before?

I think what's got me thinking this that, at least in the UK, the government left the whole problem of food distribution during the pandemic to the supermarket industry to handle, and they did a very good job of it -- far better than anything the government could have managed, judging by the cockup it made of PPE distribution -- and the reason our vaccination programme has gone so smoothly is, again, that the government has stayed out of it and let the NHS and the Army run it.

So why not continuing letting people get on doing what they're good at, without trying to interfere too much?
 

Sid

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So why not continuing letting people get on doing what they're good at, without trying to interfere too much?
That solution is to simple. You and I would choose for that but they can't have that in politics.

And:

We offered such possibility (Norwegian solution) but it was rejected by HMG.
We can't share the EU perks of the single market, with no commitments from the UK.

Would there be any tennis club in the world to allow a non member to play on their courts and compete in the club tournaments, without even paying some fees?
 

Innula Zenovka

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That solution is to simple. You and I would choose for that but they can't have that in politics.

And:

We offered such possibility (Norwegian solution) but it was rejected by HMG.
We can't share the EU perks of the single market, with no commitments from the UK.

Would there be any tennis club in the world to allow a non member to play on their courts and compete in the club tournaments, without even paying some fees?
Sure, and I'm not commenting on what the governments of EU member states might do -- that's their citizens' problem, not mine.

My question is for my government -- they said they wanted sovereignty, and now they've got it, but why do they want to use it to make it more difficult for me to buy a bag of fresh tomatoes or for M&S to sell me one?

ETA -- I'm not sure about the tennis club analogy here, though -- which of the tennis club's facilities is the UK now wanting to use? Or are citizens of EU member states to be considered "facilities" to which the EU controls access for its own benefit?
 
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Sid

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The tennis courts and tournaments being the European market. The club being the EU. The fees: the rules and regulations to play on the courts.

Another thing came to my mind: If the UK doesn't check our goods, than it is more than likely that the UK will not check goods from other countries properly as well.
So uncontrolled goods could come into UK factories that uses it as parts in products made for the EU market.
To stay with the US chicken example, the UK could import them no questions asked or checked. A British factory slams a nice 'processed in the UK' package around it, prints a nice certificate to accompany it and of to the EU.
 
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Innula Zenovka

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The tennis courts and tournaments being the European market. The club being the EU. The fees: the rules and regulations to play on the courts.

Another thing came to my mind: If the UK doesn't check our goods, than it is more than likely that the UK will not check goods from other countries properly as well.
So uncontrolled goods could come into UK factories that uses it as parts in products made for the EU market.
To stay with the US chicken example, the UK could import them no questions asked or checked. A British factory slams a nice 'processed in the UK' package around it, prints a nice certificate to accompany it and of to the EU.
But we don't import poultry from the US, and there would be massive public disquiet and disapproval (to which supermarkets are more sensitive than are governments) if we did.

If, at some future date, the UK did start importing US chicken then I could see the concern but, since we don't, it's not really an issue.

And I'm not sure, now I think about it, how well "the European market" works as a concept here. I mean, businesses sell things to customers, not markets. The rules of the club here affect the members as well as non-members, in that they're preventing European customers from continuing to buy the goods and services they want to.

The rules aren't protecting the EU customers -- if anything, they're harming them, or at least inconveniencing them -- any more than will long delays bringing perishable goods into the UK will protect British customers -- so who are they protecting?
 

Sid

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But we don't import poultry from the US, and there would be massive public disquiet and disapproval (to which supermarkets are more sensitive than are governments) if we did.

If, at some future date, the UK did start importing US chicken then I could see the concern but, since we don't, it's not really an issue.

And I'm not sure, now I think about it, how well "the European market" works as a concept here. I mean, businesses sell things to customers, not markets. The rules of the club here affect the members as well as non-members, in that they're preventing European customers from continuing to buy the goods and services they want to.

The rules aren't protecting the EU customers -- if anything, they're harming them, or at least inconveniencing them -- any more than will long delays bringing perishable goods into the UK will protect British customers -- so who are they protecting?
Short term, all true.
But long term?

The UK government must have a hidden agenda for why leaving the EU. Stupidity can't be the real reason behind it all.
Making things less practical for their people can't be their goal either. Although that is mainly what they achieved so far apart from the glorious passport color.
And all that sovereignty and the take back control dabbling has just been mostly window dressing IMHO.
Not much happened in the EU without the UK's consent while you were a member state.

Free movements of people and goods means having an shared free market all under the same rules. And that is what we don't have at the moment because the UK did no longer want that. New and other rules and regulations were needed, so that all parties are satisfied.
Both the UK and the EU seemed satisfied with what they agreed in the Christmas eve agreement.
Now we have to live with it.
Logically and with common sense, that is shamefully not the way countries interact. Sanctions, tariffs, distrust and more barriers are most of the time the first reactions. No matter what we both agree upon. If we had a say in it, than there wouldn't have been a Brexit to begin with.
 
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