The post you are reporting:
The CTC news is long-awaited and marvellous. Common Transit allows goods to go from departure to destination without payment of Customs dues, clearance taking place at either end. It also doubles as a safety and security declaration. It is, in effect, a passport for road haulage, especially across land boundaries. CTC is not an EU institution, although the EU is a club member, as are the EFTA States, Turkey and 2 of the Balkan States. What it isn't is a panacea...
- it's still a Customs declaration where none exists currently, so someone has to complete it
- it requires a financial guarantee (for which financial institutions charge) and the future volume of goods means existing ones are not big enough
- it doesn't help with EU controls at Calais etc on UK "meat"/POAO
- it doesn't, of itself, do away with the EU's 2 hours advance warning for safety and security
- it requires the club member whose territory is being entered into to "clock" each Transit declaration and, worst of all
- its use is not currently mandatory.
One would expect UK exports to be covered by Transit (in order to go into and beyond France), but the ferry operators will still have to check. Coming the other way, it is entirely possible that EU exports will use the EU export regime to get their goods to Calais etc, from which point on they become the UK's problem.
So there's still work and innovation and pump-priming to be done before M20 queues and the spectres of clearance in the Eastern Docks and consignment-level ferry freight manifests stop keeping practitioners awake at nights.
