Quiet New Year gives breathing room after Brexit
LONDON — A steady trickle of trucks rolled off ferries and trains on both sides of the English Channel on Friday, a quiet New Year’s Day after a seismic overnight shift in relations between the EuropeanUnion and Britain.
The busy goods route between England and France is on the front line of changes now that the U.K. has fully left the economic embrace of the 27-nation bloc, the final stage of Brexit.
“For the majority of trucks, they won’t even notice the difference,” said John Keefe, spokesman for Eurotunnel, which carries vehicles under the Channel. “There was always the risk that if this happened at a busy time then we could run into some difficulties, but it’s happening overnight on a bank holiday and a longweekend.”
Britain left the European bloc’s vast single market for people, goods and services at 11 p.m. London time on New Year’s Eve, in the biggest single economic change the country has experienced since World War II. A new U.K.-EU trade deal will bring restrictions and red tape, but for British Brexit supporters, it means reclaiming national independence from the EU and its web of rules.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it “an amazing moment for this country.”
“We have our freedom in our hands, and it is up to us to makethe most of it,” he said in a New Year’s video message.
The historic moment passed quietly, with U.K. lockdown measures against the coronavirus curtailing mass gatherings to celebrate or mourn. Brexit, which had dominated public debate in Britain for years, was even pushed off some newspaper front pages by news of the huge vaccination effort against COVID-19, which is surging across the country.
In the streets of London — which voted strongly to remain in the EU in Britain’s 2016 referendum — there was
little enthusiasm for Brexit.
“I think it is a disaster, among many disasters this year,” said Matt Steel, a doctor. “It is a [lousy] deal. I don’t really see any positives in it, to be honest.”
But in seaside Folkestone, atthe English end of the Channel Tunnel, retired bank manager David Binks said he was relieved that the tortuous Brexit saga was — just possibly — over. “It’s been going on for so long now that the time is now, I think, that we move on andgo from there,” he said.
The break comes 11 months after a political Brexit that left the two sides in a “transition period” in which
EU rights and rules continued to apply to Britain.
The trade agreement sealed on Christmas Eve after months of tense negotiations ensures that the two sides can continue to buy and sell goods without tariffs or quotas. But companies face sheaves of new costs and paperwork, including customs declarations and border checks.
The English Channel port of Dover and the Eurotunnel braced for delays.
The vital supply route was snarled after France closed its border to U.K. truckers for 48 hours during Christmas week in response to a fastspreading variant of the virus identified in England. Some 15,000 truckers needed emergency virus tests just to get into France, a process that left many stuck in their trucks for days.
Butthe pandemic and a holiday weekend meant crossChannel traffic was light on Friday. Britain has also delayed imposing full customs checks for several months so that companies can adjust.
Inthe French port of Calais, officials said the new computer systems were working well and truckers had the right paperwork.
“Brexit ... is not a synonym for congestion, as we say in English, nor a synonym for traffic disruption, but everyone must do their work,” said Jean-Marc Puissesseau, president of the Ports of Calais and Boulogne-Sur-Mer.