EU food trade rules: Malta is best in class

I have a friend on a remote Scottish island, the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Dickon Green and his wife Ellie own a beautiful hotel and restaurant there. The building, a substantial Victorian manor house once owned by English author and spy Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons) overlooks a glorious beach at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. A square kilometre of white sand, disappearing and reappearing as the tide goes.

The couple also runs a small smoke house, curing the softest and tastiest salmon there is. For many years I ordered parcels of their salmon to be delivered to friends all over Europe.

Then came Brexit and the refusal of conservative MPs in England to accept anything but a clear break from Europe. The customs union for goods, suggested by Prime Minister Theresa May (in a desperate attempt to avoid calamity in Northern Ireland which has the UK’s only land border with the EU, and to mitigate the expected economic fallout for the kingdom) was refused by her party, and the Conservatives sent her packing.

What followed was the buffoon “f*** business” Boris Johnson. And the cost for businesses and consumers kept piling up since. Supermarkets in the mega-city London are today poorer in offering fresh produce than any Maltese corner shop. Imports became more cumbersome, and European agricultural workers went home, leaving farmers in the UK without able hands – and without EU grants.

What no one had reckoned with in the UK was the swiftness with which the EU would set up border controls for fish and all agricultural products, demanding not only duty payment but all kind of hitherto unheard-of papers for customs clearance. As a consequence, Britain’s maritime exports came to a halt. The time it took to check documents, rectify faults and inspect goods for sanitary purposes was too long for fresh fish to survive.

To avoid the worst food shortages in English peacetime, the UK, on the other hand, postponed year after year their own customs checks and just waved arriving trucks through.

Things got worse in 2020, when Buffoon Boris threw any possible compromise with the EU out of the window. Dickon realised he could not take care of my Christmas salmon anymore and recommended an uncle in Ireland. His cold-smoked salmon was good, but not quite as good as Dickon’s. Then the uncle closed his smoke house and retired.

So I called up the Greens again. We decided to give it another try. Many of the teething problems of trade with the EU had been smoothed out since, a certain routine had set in, and forwarders knew by now what papers to present and how to fashion them. Bottlenecks started to disappear, probably also because many companies had given up on export entirely.

Dickon worked with care. He contacted DEFRA, the Department of the Environment, Forestry and Rural Affairs, to brief him legally before he sent his salmon flying.

To regulate the border crossing of plants, animals and animal products makes sense. Diseases and illness can be imported from countries observing weaker standards of health and safety. Most countries are hyper-sensitive in this respect. The EU is no exception.

Even within the Common Market, barriers will go up during epidemics, like an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, to contain possible contagion. National border posts will therefore control not only the validity of presented health certificates, but also physically examine animal products, and if deemed necessary, check them with laboratory tests.

But sensibly, the EU makes exceptions for food items found in personal luggage, or “small consignments of goods sent to natural persons, which are not intended to be placed on the market” (Commission Delegated Regulation [EU] 2122/2019). So what you eat yourself alone is fine.

This is specifically mentioned for fishery products, where “the combined quantity does not exceed the weight limit of 20kg or the weight of one fish, whichever weight is the highest”. Usually, EU regulations take precedence before national laws. In this instance, member states are delegated the right to national controls as they deem fit.

So shortly before Christmas, Dickon handed over his filets of smoked salmon to DHL to be forwarded to my friends.

DHL checked the papers, invoiced the transport costs and excepted the fish for delivery.

Now comes the interesting part. Some countries needed intervention. Only after some lengthy explanatory calls and the presentation of EU regulations did the fish clear customs in Belgium and France.

In the case of Malta it all worked as it was supposed to work. I got a text message from customs asking for online payment of some modest import taxes. I paid online and the fish was cleared. My friends received it the same day.

Austria, on the contrary, was a bureaucratic nightmare. Because I only went there shortly before Christmas, I had stated as a postal address my neighbour’s, who happens to be a wine maker, which makes him a “business”. DHL asked for her VAT registration number.

After it was established that not the winery, but I was the final recipient, Dickon had to contact DHL Scotland to change the recipient to my name (same address), VAT to be charged.

And then madness reigned. First they asked me for an “import licence”. I explained that the salmon was for my personal consumption, and not for trade, and that it was a gift. I added that I had never heard of a “gift import licence”. Then in another e-mail they asked for Dickon’s “fishery licence”. Now Dickon smokes the fish, which he buys from a friend. He doesn’t fish it himself. And the salmon was farmed, not line caught.

Only a fisherman would need a licence, but wouldn’t get one for wild salmon, which is protected in Scotland. Repeatedly I asked the local customs clerk at DHL to put his demands in writing, referring and quoting relevant EU or other laws. I never got a written answer.

Shortly before New Year, the winery got a letter notifying them about the return of my salmon to Scotland.

The moral of the story is this: (1) when it comes to trade, Malta is fitter than many other EU members; (2) exiting a trade block leads to nothing but pain; (3) to enshrine EU membership into Malta’s constitution is perhaps not such a bad idea. It would stop silly ideas in their track.

Andreas Weitzer is an independent journalist based in Malta.