Playing silly buggers with trade

Even the Graun has to report an adverse reaction to the sabre rattling:

 'The best advert for Brexit': European press reacts to EU Covid vaccine row

Continental newspapers give harsh verdicts on the European commission’s actions

A lot of criticism seems to befocused on van der Lyen parfticulalry. The Graun hopes it will blow over, no doubt, and returns to more conventional coverage with examples of the silly things we overlooked in the neogtiations:

Brexit 'teething problems' endemic and could ruin us, say UK businesses

“There is real anger and incredible frustration for people who either import or export that they are simply not able to move stuff. It is just incredibly difficult to get the paperwork right and there have been very low levels of support from government,”

The biggest hit to business is the new rules of origin requirement, which will have a permanent impact on trade. Previously, Brexit goods coming from the EU did not need to be certified as made in Britain or made in the EU to be sold freely within the single market.

But since January the provenance of all goods must be documented...“One port requires every document to be individually stamped. Another wants one stamp on a dozen pages fanned out and is turning people away if they haven’t done it that way,”...EU suppliers were “unprepared” for Brexit and have not been able to supply an audit trail for all goods.

Could any of this be deliberate restrictive practice to punish the UK?  Does anyone now believe otherwise? An Irish spokepserson on the radio this morning declared this was only what we deserved for voting for Brexit.I thought WTO forbade all this stupid stuff?

 One more example

Eight days for carrots to get to Belfast with complex Brexit checks

[a mixed lorry load] must be accompanied by a litany of documents and certificates before the trailer can be cleared to board the ferry at Birkenhead....struggling with the documentation requiring it to supply what is known as an “inco term”, which determines who pays the duty in any tariff but also establishes a specific record as to who is the importer...Then there was also the supplier who had provided a commodity code that was two digits short. A simple key stroke mistake could be difference between the lorry getting the red or the green light for entry to NI....entire lorry loads are at risk if one supplier gets one item wrong....two lorries delayed in Dublin because of the words “drumsticks” and “eggs” appeared in the paperwork. They were given the all clear after it was clarified that the drumsticks were not chicken but Swizzels sweets and the eggs were Cadbury’s Creme Eggs.

“It’s absolutely criminal what has been allowed to happen between these two islands that have traded with each other for so long,”