This fireside chat recap is from Day 6 of FreightWaves’ Global Supply Chain Week. Day 6 focused on global maritime logistics.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: How Brexit will influence trade across Europe
DETAILS: While the U.K. has already left the European Union, there are a number of questions that remain about trade flow, customs regulations and relationships between Britain and the EU.
SPEAKER: Walter Van der Meiren, director for customs brokerage at UPS Europe.
BIO: Van der Meiren has over 35 years of experience dealing with customs trade between countries. He is part of the European Express Association and the Customs Taskforce of Business Europe and serves as chairman of the Customs and Trade Facilitation Committee at Amcham EU and vice chair of its Brexit task force. Since Jan. 18, Van der Meiren has served as chairperson of the Trade Facilitation Committee of the European Express Industry.
KEY QUOTES FROM VAN DER MEIREN: “The U.K. left the club and if you leave the club the rules don’t apply to you anymore. But if you are still doing business with the club, you have to come up with new rules. In order to prepare ourselves for this, UPS from the first day after the referendum started looking at different things that looked at all aspects of new logistics.”
“One of the most challenging items was the unpredictability of deployment date and also not knowing what the requirements would be.”
“In my 36 years I’ve seen customs change dramatically in terms of legislation, in terms of technology, in terms of taxes, because customs is traditionally a revenue collector. What people need to understand is that customs has grown into a pretty important actor in terms of safety, security and anti-terrorism but also in protecting citizens in checking goods and that adds to the complexity that we now have facing Brexit.”