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On 28 April, the UK government announced that no further import controls on EU goods will be introduced this year and that businesses can now stop their preparations for Phase 3 of the Border Operating Model, which was planned to roll out in July. The UK Government will publish a Target Operating Model in the Autumn that will set out how and when the UK will introduce an improved regime of border import controls. This new regime will apply equally to goods from the EU and goods from the Rest of the World, from the end of 2023.

In particular, the controls that are no longer being introduced for EU imports in July 2022 are:

• A requirement for Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) checks currently at destination to be moved to a Border Control Post (BCP);
• A requirement for safety and security (S&S) declarations;
• A requirement for further SPS certification and checks;
• Prohibitions and restrictions on the import of chilled meats.

The controls that have already been introduced will remain in place.

CLECAT recognises that the UK government has taken this decision while being mindful of adding potential disruption to ports and placing additional cost on industry at this time, particularly given the ongoing war in Ukraine, recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the costs facing British consumers and businesses. However, CLECAT expresses regrets over the yet another delay in the introduction of controls, as it substantially impacts CLECAT members that have already taken extensive measures to ensure readiness for the roll out of Phase 3 of the Border Operating Model in July. Furthermore, delaying the controls will only mean once again ‘kicking the can down the road’, where unprepared companies will continue to postpone their preparations until the very last moment, sustaining the risks of disruptions in EU-UK trade in the future.