Delivery firms fall victim to Brexit as talks flounder over fishing rights
AS BREXIT talks go down to the wire, the impact of the UK leaving the EU is already taking effect as a number of highprofile companies that deliver parcels from the UK to Ireland are suspending their services.
Parcel Motel will suspend its UK virtual address service on December 28, due to Brexit.
It had offered online shoppers in the Republic of Ireland a way to circumvent international shipping restrictions and added costs by allowing them to pay for the use of its ‘virtual address’, which would see packages first shipped to the
‘Need a deal no later than this weekend’
company’s depot i n Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, before being distributed around the country.
However, the company will no longer accept deliveries to the Newtownabbey facility as of December 28, and the service will be ‘ suspended’ on December 31.
The company said it was working on a new offering to meet post-Brexit requirements and will consider the reintroduction of the service.
It is also suspending its service that allowed customers to send and return parcels to the UK on December 31.
Courier company DPD has also announced the suspension of its service. In a statement on its website the company said: ‘We will be temporarily suspending our collection service from mainland Britain into the Republic and Northern Ireland from December 23rd 2020. We hope to reinstate the service in due course and will keep you up to date regarding any changes.’
An Post’s AddressPal is also suspending its virtual address for importing items.
Britain and the European Union continued trade talks in Brussels yesterday.
With less than two weeks to go before the UK leaves the bloc on December 31, the two sides are under pressure to agree on a new relationshipsp to
safeguard almost a trillion euro worth of trade.
EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier had said on Friday that ‘just a few hours’ remained to reach a post-Brexit trade deal. He cited ‘extremely difficult’ negotiations over how the EU could retaliate if Britain backpedalled on production standards to win a competitive edge for its products, or if Britain cut European fishermen off from its fishing waters.
The European Parliament yesterday repeated its call for a deal to be reached no later than this weekend, to give it time to properly ratify the agreement.
David McAllister, head of the parliament’s Brexit group, said the chamber could hold an emergency plenary on December 29 if a deal was struck this weekend.
‘This requires that on Sunday evening at the latest we get a text, in order to start our prepared measures,’ he told German broadcaster NDR.
However, if a deal arrived later than this weekend, the 27 EU member states could still endorse it on their own to allow for ‘provisional application’, a scenario that would be likely to upset MEPs.