Jamie Foord and Matt Seagar have become specialists in customs forms despite themselves. The two truckers know everything about “T1”, “T2”, “CMR” and others “GMR”the names of the different papers to be completed since Brexit (effective since 1er January 2021). Not counting the ” manifest “, “a document which lists the complete list of products loaded in their semi-trailers: sometimes, the pile of papers is several centimeters thick”specifies Mr. Foord.
This Thursday, December 14, the two British truckers are sitting in the Channel Tunnel shuttle, returning to the United Kingdom after a delivery to Belgium for one and France for the other. On a screen, the truck registration plates scroll past, associated with an arrow: green for the most part, which indicates that the formalities are in order and that the drivers can disembark without additional control; orange for a few others, who must go through customs. “When we have a test, it usually only takes half an hour, but once, it held me up for more than four hours”says Mr. Foord.
Both voted for Brexit and still think it was a good thing (“We wanted to reduce immigration”, they say). Listening to them, the hassles at the border are rare enough to not seem like a real problem to them.
Economic stagnation
If the difficulties are limited, it is largely thanks to the “smart border” set up by Getlink, the company which operates the Channel Tunnel. Shortly after the vote in favor of Brexit, it began discussions to dematerialize controls as much as possible. Now, carriers upload the forms in advance, which are processed by customs once the truck gets on the train. In principle, everything is taken care of during the journey. “What we sell them is speed: they take ninety minutes from motorway to motorway”, between the A16 in Calais and the M20 on the English side, explains Aude Bourdel, head of freight and customer engagement at Getlink. The same duration as before Brexit.
Nevertheless, ” around 20 % “ trucks, according to her – ” less than 10 % “for Géraldine Périchon, the financial director of Getlink –, are controlled by customs. “The time they spend there is not our responsibility”specifies Mme Bourdel.
These grains of sand in the cross-Channel transport machine, as well as the current economic stagnation, are felt in traffic. Over the first nine months of the year, 908,000 trucks passed through the Channel Tunnel. This is a drop of 23% compared to the same period in 2019, the last comparable year before the Covid-19 pandemic (which began in 2020) and Brexit.
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