"Significant disruption" at the border: London prepares for supply chain chaos

"Major disruptions" at the limit
London is preparing for supply chain chaos

With the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, additional controls and customs duties have been incurred at the border since this year. Contrary to what was expected, this has so far not hindered the movement of goods. That should change in the next few weeks, admits a British minister.

The British Minister of State Michael Gove has warned of "considerable additional disruptions" in the movement of goods between Great Britain and the EU in the coming weeks. This will particularly affect the port of Dover, where thousands of trucks are transported by ferries to Calais in France and vice versa every day, said Gove.

The government will "redouble its efforts to communicate the exact bureaucratic requirements needed to ensure that trade can flow freely," he announced.

In the first week of the new year, the volume of traffic on the country's main trade route was significantly lower than usual. Before the end of the Brexit transition phase at the turn of the year, many companies had increased their inventories. But now it is expected that trade will pick up again and thus the problems will increase.

With the final withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU customs union and the internal market, trade between the EU and Great Britain will be subject to additional controls and in some cases also customs duties.

Fishermen, parcel service providers and fashion chains are already affected by higher costs from customs bureaucracy and certificates on food safety and have partially stopped their deliveries to the continent and Ireland. The fishermen in particular, who sell a large part of their catch on the European market, suffer from longer delivery times for their perishable goods.

Intervention in "well-oiled supply chains"

Online supermarket boss Stuart Rose predicted price increases for consumers in the UK. "You can't step into the 50-year-old legacy of a well-oiled supply chain and assume everything will run like clockwork from day one," Rose said on BBC Radio 4.

He said there would be shortages of some food in the UK in the short term, but there would be no famine, said Rose. According to him, 50 to 80 percent of the fruits and vegetables on the UK market come from the EU during the cold season.

The port of Dover, meanwhile, disagreed with reports that there are delays in the crossing. The port operator said the volume was always lower in January and operations were running smoothly. However, many European logistics companies are hesitant to send their trucks to the island after long traffic jams shortly before Christmas when France completely closed its borders because of a new virus variant in England.

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