Ahead of Brexit, EU shifts into gear to keep goods flowing
Countries are bracing for the worst as May’s plans for amicable divorce backfire
The Dutch government is hiring nearly 1,000 new customs officials. Britain’s health agency is mulling how to ensure medicine supplies.
Ireland is preparing border inspections for food shipments and even racehorses.
Call it contingency planning. Call it preparedness. Just try not to call it panic.
As Prime Minister Theresa May struggles to navigate Britain’s divorce from the European Union, the disarray is amplifying the need for governments around the bloc to have backup plans for a variety of chaotic scenarios.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, issued an urgent advisory on Thursday for countries in the region to accelerate preparations “at all levels and for all outcomes.”
It warned that Britain’s withdrawal would have a significant effect on supply chains, trade, transportation and personnel. Getting ready immediately “is of paramount importance,” it said.
Banks are already moving staff out of Britain, and companies like Airbus are increasing inventory to insure against shortages.
But countries that conduct a lot of trade with the continent’s second-largest economy face a particular challenge: how to manage the massive flow of TVs, car parts, drugs and every other product that cross their borders to get to and from Britain?
Many have been preparing for a nightmare scenario in which Britain fails to negotiate an orderly departure from the EU, a process known as Brexit, while assuming that a rosier outcome will prevail.
That would involve keeping Britain tied to European regulations and customs arrangements, allowing goods to continue travelling easily across borders and safeguarding crit- ical supply chains and jobs.
But the process has spiralled into utter confusion as hardcore supporters of a clean break from the EU revolt against a plan by May.
On Tuesday, she barely averted a defeat in Parliament of her blueprint for a “soft Brexit,” casting doubt on whether the prime minister can negotiate an agreement acceptable to her government, let alone with the EU, before Britain is to withdraw on March 29, 2019.
Even if that deadline is extended, there is no guarantee things will end smoothly.
Britain’s neighbours are taking no chances.
In the Netherlands, one of Britain’s biggest European trading partners, officials are recruiting nearly 1,000 customs officials for Rotterdam, Europe’s busiest cargo port, as well as at airports, to prepare for a surge in post-Brexit bureaucracy. The government had been hoping for an outcome along the lines presented by May, which would let the Netherlands and other European countries keep moving goods across borders with only slightly more red tape than now.
A “hard Brexit,” in which no such arrangement is made, would instead require strict new customs controls and a tangle of tariffs for each chocolate bar, computer or car part that passes through the Rotterdam port to and from Britain.
After May’s most recent battle, the Dutch are bracing for the worst.
Other places that do big business with Britain are following suit.
In Belgium, the government is hiring more agents for the sprawling port of Antwerp and weighing the need for scanners, sniffer dogs, weapons and drones to beef up post-Brexit customs surveillance. How much will depend on what form Brexit takes?
Even Britain is not sure how to prepare: the government estimates up to 5,000 new customs agents may be needed. But that would depend on the outcome of the negotiations.
Brexit, even in its tidiest form, could create paralysis at the Channel Tunnel crossing between France and Britain. In the French city of Calais, the deputy mayor, Philippe Mignonet, has warned that Brexit could result in round-the-clock traffic jams, and an increased risk of migrants trying to smuggle themselves into waiting payloads.