EU import border controls delayed
Pre-notification requirements for animal origin and associated products will be implemented in October, rather than April as originally planned and the deferred import declaration easement, due to end in July, will now continue until the 1st January 2022.
Government ministers confirmed last week that the UK will be delaying the roll out of its second and third phases of post-Brexit border procedures.
UK importers will now not need to file customs declarations for imports from the EU until the 1st January 2022, instead of 1st July 2021 and the original April deadline for firms to submit additional paperwork for food products would have coincided with lockdown lifting and has no been extended to October.
The development comes after trade bodies had been amplifying concerns over the phased implementation, which they believed threatened to collapse the country’s supply chains, which were already pressured by Brexit and COVID.
The full revised government timetable for the introduction of controls, is as follows:
- Customs import declarations will still be required, but the option to use the deferred declaration scheme under EIDR, has been extended to 1st January 2022.
- Safety and Security Declarations for imports will not be required until 1st January 2022.
- Pre-notification requirements for Products of Animal Origin (POAO), certain animal by-products (ABP), and High Risk Food Not Of Animal Origin (HRFNAO) will not be required until 1st October 2021. Export Health Certificate requirements for POAO and certain ABP will come into force on the same date.
- Physical SPS checks for POAO, certain ABP, and HRFNAO will not be required until 1st January 2022. At that point they will take place at Border Control Posts.
- Physical SPS checks on high risk plants will take place at Border Control Posts, rather than at the place of destination as now, from 1 January 2022.
- Pre-notification requirements and documentary checks, including phytosanitary certificates will be required for low risk plants and plant products, and will be introduced from 1 January 2022.
- From March 2022, checks at Border Control Posts will take place on live animals and low risk plants and plant products.
While some welcome the extension of these inbound border simplifications, they only apply to a percentage of shipments and are not reciprocated by the EU and postponing the controls unilaterally risks weakening the UK’s negotiating leverage, when seeking reciprocal easements from the EU.
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