13/02/2021
The BBC has
joined the throng of news organisations feeding off the misery of British exporters trying to do business on the continent. And there is no shortage of people willing to recount their tales of woe, one of whom is Nicolas Hanson, managing director of high-end pasta-making firm La Tua Pasta.
He tells BBC business reporter Robert Plummer that, "If you don't speak French, you're stuffed". But, apparently, Hanson does, having dual British and French citizenship. That, we are told, has allowed him to carry on sending truffle ravioli and other delicacies to top retailers on the other side of the Channel.
This trade, we also learn, has become "all the more valuable to him as demand from posh UK restaurants has withered during the pandemic". But, since 1 January, "new demands for paperwork have saddled him with an extra £50,000 to £75,000 in costs".
He has been caught by product of animal origin rules, which apply not just to meat, but to all foodstuffs that contain half or more processed dairy product, eggs or milk. For these, he must obtain a public health certificate, and inspections from two sets of vets, one in the UK and one in France, for every shipment he sends.
"There are never enough vets, so we can wait for four hours. Every hour we wait costs £50", says Hanson. "Then the truck driver has worked his shift and needs eight hours' rest time". At every step of the way, there are officials who need to be paid, he adds grimly. "What's going on is highway robbery. Everyone has got their snout in the trough".
His customers will have to pay more because of the extra costs: "I will absorb some, they will absorb some and we will have to live with it", he concludes, "But frankly, it's scandalous that the governments are allowing this to happen. We're just a food manufacturer trying to make a living".
Hanson thus becomes another chunk of raw material â cannon fodder, even â to populate an ever-growing genre of tales, stacked up and packaged to keep viewers and readers entertained as they while away the hours of enforced "lockdown" idleness.
But what is wearily familiar to the regulatory afficionado is the predictability of it all, combined with the shocked naivety of the victims, typified by Hanson's comment that, "it's scandalous that the governments are allowing this to happen".
Readers here, fortified with a better understanding of the issues, may smile knowingly at the account of truffle ravioli and other delicacies being inspected not once, but twice by vets â a ridiculous state of affairs that is so much of the "new normal" that the absurdity of the vet's role is not specifically picked out.
Nevertheless, this has the makings of an epic Monty Python sketch. One could see a John Cleese figure, dressed up in Herriot-style clobber, stethoscope round his neck, earnestly peering at chunks of ravioli as they are run round the paddock to check for abnormalities. All we need is a driver with a broad Yorkshire accent, reassuring the gallant guardian with the words: "Aye, vetinry, 'appen they're in fine fettle".
But this "new normal" is the way it was always going to be, and if the media â and government â had been doing their jobs properly, nothing of this should have come as a surprise.
In the unreal world of EU border controls, it is completely logical to have dedicated legions of "official veterinarians" protecting these fragile European from hoards of rogue ravioli. Interestingly, though, no-one mentioned the coloured crayons.
Attempting to make some sense out of this sort of thing, the
Evening Standard goes to lawyers, Blick Rothenberg, and speaks to Alex Altmann, partner and head of the firm's Brexit advisory group. Probably, a lawyer is the last person you want to go to if you want any clarity, but newspapers are not in the information game these days. They are selling prestige.
The prestigious Mr Altmann â described as one of the lawyers "who actually knows about this stuff" - tells them that the "root problem" is that the government "tried to agree a trade deal that would normally take five, six, seven years in 11 months". The rush meant only the most basic provisions for tariff free access was agreed.
Many businesses are in a state of disbelief that this is the situation and are hoping it will be cleared up, but they may be mistaken, Altmann adds. "The British government is telling businesses to just go and set up subsidiaries in the EU. That is their answer to these problems".
From goods exporters to accountants, that, he says, is the government's solution. Not renegotiating with the EU. "It's a complete disaster for SMEs. They do not have the skills to do what their government is telling them to do. It is costing them a lot of money".
From his brief comments, therefore, it is quite evident that the Mr Altmann doesn't "know about this stuff". When it comes to foodstuffs, this has nothing to do with the speed or otherwise of the negotiations.
As the Canadians have found, and the South Koreans before them, even a comprehensive free trade deal doesn't get you privileged access to the EU's Single Market.
Come what may, with the food safety
acquis and the "official controls", as long as we are outside the Single Market, British ravioli is going to be trotted round the paddock â for a fee â before it is let loose on the European market.
However, not content with being lead astray by Mr Altmann, the
Evening Standard also trots off to talk to Eric White, EU and international trade lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills.
At least here, though, there is a very slight trace of realism as White sets out the odds of getting any improvements in the near term. He explains that our trade deal, the TCA, can only be changed by the Partnership Council. And, while the Partnership Council consists of representatives from the UK and the EU, getting them to change the TCA is not a simple process, he says.
White then says: "People don't just knock on the door of the Partnership Council and say: 'I've got a problem here, can you fix it?' That's not how international trade works. The other side will respond: 'Well, I have a whole load of problems, too. Let's negotiate'".
Veering totally off the rails, White then avers that this can be "tricky and time consuming" albeit "not impossible". And yet, despite the wailing about vets and "red tape" â which seem to occupy many of the reports of this new genre - this gifted, and doubtless expensive, lawyer tells us that, "one of the biggest headaches for exporters of goods is that Rules of Origin mean tariffs are set on a huge range of goods going from the UK to Europe".
So far, though, these haven't actually featured heavily in the wailing, but White is optimistic that the Partnership Council may amend the chapter and its annexes on rules of origin. That's unusually flexible, he says. "A very high degree of evolution is built into it. Usually they're fairly tight but in the issue of origin, there is this provision. So if it is decided there is a problem, it can be changed fairly easily".
Unfortunately, Mr White doesn't point out that the rules are a copy-out from CETA, so that if they are changed, the EU is going to have Canada on its back, and some of its other partners, demanding similar concessions. Despite that, he seems to believe that the TCA is "full of renegotiation possibilities".
The
Standard's intrepid Jim Armitage, however, has covered his back by talking to someone "close to the government's thinking", on "condition of anonymity".
Suspending disbelief for a moment and accepting that there is anyone in the government capable of thinking, the views of this anonymous source are stark. "I can't see a renegotiation happening, even though a lot of people would love to see it", he says. Even though it would create better outcomes, people in government say the current situation is worth the price for winning back sovereignty and greater independence".
If nothing else, that rather goes to prove the point about the lack of thinking. But fortified with this wisdom, Armitage warns us that, "For the short, medium, and possibly long term, UK exporters may just have to get used to it" â the "it" being the rash of border controls that they are currently experiencing.
So, untrammelled by logic or sense, courageous vets will continue to guard the fragile Europeans against the ravages of rogue ravioli, and other perils. Louis Pasteur would have been so proud.
Also published on
Turbulent Times.
