British are stocking up
Patience. That’s what truckers near Calais in northern France currently need to get across the English Channel. Long queues of trucks have formed three weeks before the British will finally leave the EU. The fact that a trade pact has still not been reached adds to the situation.
Sébastien Rivera, General Secretary of France’s National Road Transport Association, FNTR, said: “The British are in the process of replenishing their supplies because of the likely Brexit problems. There will be additional administrative formalities for customs and security declarations, goods could become more expensive. Since about three So for weeks we see an increase in traffic to the UK as supplies are being built up. The transport infrastructure, whether it is the port or the Channel Tunnel, does not have the capacity to accommodate this increase in traffic. “
Fewer ferries but more trucks
Another reason for the long truck traffic jams is the decline in tourism – and thus in ferry traffic. Sébastien Rivera: “The shipping companies have reduced the number of ferries. So we have more trucks but fewer ferries to bring these trucks to the UK, and that explains those hours of waiting and the traffic jams”.
France is something like the British gateway to Europe: 80 percent of traffic to and from the island flows through France. A train runs through the Eurotunnel every three hours. 30 million passengers cross the border every year.
And so the transport companies and institutions are preparing for Brexit, such as the Gare du Nord in Paris.
“Britain will be a separate country”
France’s budget minister Olivier Dussopt said: “We have hired 600 additional customs officers to deal with Brexit. Some of these 600 customs officers are deployed here, because from January 1st the Gare du Nord will be a place where the EU and the Great Britain will be a separate country, which means air and border police controls where you have to have a passport to cross the border. “
From January 1st, Great Britain will continue to be geographically close to the rest of Europe, but politically the country will then be a distant third country such as China or Australia.
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