When Britain officially left the EU, its nearest and most significant trading partner, on January 31, 2020, few people harboured any illusion about the likely disruption that many businesses would face until the new trading relations with the EU settled down.
The politicians reached a complex agreement after some bitter negotiations. Now technocrats are trying to make this agreement work. As expected, the growing pains of Brexit are hurting some businesses in Malta as well as in some other countries.
Local medicine importers find it challenging to manage the supply chain from the UK, their primary traditional market.
Popular brands of pain killers, eye medicaments and hormone deficiency medicines are reported to be getting scarce on pharmacy shelves as importation from the UK is now tied to bureaucratic processes that cause delays and increase costs.
A less obvious disruption is being experienced by second-hand car importers who have pleaded unsuccessfully with the government to ask for a derogation from the European Commission from new trading regulations to avoid costly and time-consuming importation processes.
A Malta Car Importers Association spokesperson said that their 75 members want the government to intervene because they “are in a dire financial state”.
The government must act judiciously to ensure that business after Brexit is not disrupted unduly and cause distress to consumers. There seem to be some solutions to enable medical products made in the UK to return to the local market. Sourcing supplies from Ireland could be one solution even if this does not come without difficulties. Ireland itself is facing some shortages of UK-produced medicines.
However, an educational campaign might be needed to convince consumers that medical products with the same chemical ingredients as the more familiar UK brands are just as good and effective. This would not only help pharmacy owners but also private and public clinics that prescribe medicine to patients.
The model adopted by Cyprus, which has been similarly hit by post-Brexit pains, could be an effective and longer-term way of keeping both importers and consumers of medicine happy.
Cyprus has found its solution by going for the national registration of products from the UK. According to the chairman of the pharmaceutical division of the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises, Mario Debono, the cost of national registration is much lower in Cyprus than in Malta. Indeed, this is a case where the government can and should intervene to reduce costs and unnecessary bureaucracy for importers.
The arguments brought by car importers are less convincing. With Malta still struggling to hit its environmental targets, it is counter intuitive to propose that we should continue to import more second-hand cars that, in most cases, are more polluting than new vehicles.
The marketing decisions of large pharmaceutical firms could adversely affect the supply of medications to minuscule markets like Malta. The government could use its diplomatic clout to help private importers negotiate import deals for critically essential medicines for patients.
It seems that some importers of medical products had acted in good time, well before Brexit came into effect, to procure alternative supplies from non-UK manufacturers. This may have added costs but ensured that the local market was never short of essential suppliers.
Importers of medical products and the consumers need to keep up the pressure on the government to ensure that business after Brexit is not unduly disrupted for too long.