European bike transportation

Last month, it looked like transport problems for European track day fans were about to be sorted.

The Federation of European Motorcycle Associations and the UK National Motorcyclists Council had been pushing hard with the EU and UK government to solve problems with people taking bikes in vans across the English Channel. Customs officials were treating the bikes as commercial freight items which needed a stack of paperwork after the UK left the European Union, the Single Market and the Customs Union. An expensive carnet was being requested to take bikes into the EU when they weren’t being ridden. And if your bike was being transported by a third party – maybe a trackday company or a friend – the situation became even more complex.

In May this year, FEMA announced that it had received a letter from the European Commission, which promised to clear matter up. It stated that “Means of transport entering the EU temporarily and leaving back to the United Kingdom after a few weeks can be placed under temporary admission and declared to customs by the sole act of crossing the frontier.”

Seems clear, yes? Well, no. Turns out that ‘means of transport’ might not strictly apply to a bike in a van, especially a track bike that’s not road legal, or a non-running display bike heading to a bike show. And as before, a strict customs agent might slap taxes or other charges onto anyone bringing a bike from the UK into the EU in a truck. So, we’re heading back to stage one.

The NMC’s executive director Craig Carey-Clinch said: “The work done jointly by FEMA, FIVA and the NMC has ‘shifted the dial’ on this issue and led to the reopening of talks between the UK and individual EU member states which had stalled. The NMC has proposed a potential solution which the UK Government will consider internally and also discuss with counterparts within the EU, but we fear that it could be some months before this is finally resolved. In the meantime, we urge riders to check the rules carefully before transporting their bikes to and from the EU in a van or on a trailer.”