A good three years after leaving the EU customs union and the internal market, Great Britain is starting to control food imports from the community of states. This means that there are new hurdles for EU exporters when doing business with Great Britain, said Marc Lehnfeld from the federally owned company Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI) in London to the German Press Agency.
Live animals, meat and meat products, fresh milk and its products and eggs are particularly affected. “In all three categories, the EU is a central supplier and Germany is an important supplier country,” said Lehnfeld.
That’s why the trade hurdles come
Great Britain left the EU at the end of January 2020. After a transition phase, the country has no longer been a member of the EU customs union and the internal market since 2021. Since then, the EU has also controlled imports from Great Britain. In the other direction, however, the checks had been postponed several times, for example because there were not yet enough customs officials available. As of January 31st, precise documents and forms are now required for imports of animal and plant products from the EU. Full controls should be introduced by the end of October.
Jill Rutter from the Institute for Government think tank warned that due to the new controls and the associated longer delivery times, inflation could rise again in the election year of 2024. “This is probably not a Brexit success that the government really wanted to celebrate this year,” commented Rutter.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is far behind the social democratic Labor Party in polls. Experts therefore expect a tough course in EU politics in order not to alienate Brexit hardliners.
There is a risk of bottlenecks
The problems could become even greater if EU companies stop doing business in Great Britain due to rising costs and increased effort, wrote Rutter. This could lead to bottlenecks and interruptions in deliveries of goods as diverse as pork, tulips and strawberries.
“This is also an important turning point for the British economy and consumers,” said foreign trade expert Lehnfeld. He pointed out that the UK imported almost three quarters of its food from the EU in the first nine months of 2023.
In the “Financial Times” representatives of Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia warned of problems. This creates more work for the responsible veterinary authorities. The British meat industry said it was concerned about the lack of official veterinarians in key markets such as Germany, the EU’s second-largest pork supplier to Britain, and Italy approved to accept deliveries.
Lehnfeld said a so-called SPS agreement between the EU and the UK could ease the bureaucratic process. SPS stands for sanitary-epidemiological, veterinary and phytosanitary controls, i.e. controls of food as well as live animals, feed, plants or seeds. There is already an SPS agreement with Switzerland that serves as a model. “In the British election year of 2024, an agreement appears to be difficult,” said Lehnfeld.
