Body & Soul5 mins ago
Yet Another Brexit Benefit – They Just Keep Coming
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//The UK government is resisting requests to bailout struggling train operator Eurostar, with ministers insisting that the company should look to its shareholders to ease its plight. Eurostar is at risk of bankruptcy following a collapse in revenue after passenger numbers plunged during the pandemic. UK ministers are said to be taking a tough line. One UK official briefed on the situation said: “The tunnel and the rolling stock are there. Someone would take them on, even if the company went to the wall. There’s no appetite for bailing them out at all.”
and
//Eurostar has £400m loans that are due by June, although they can be extended, say people familiar with the matter. The company called for rescue funds from the UK government in January, when it said there had been a 95 per cent decline in passenger numbers since March 2020//
Plus
//The UK government has maintained that the French state and private shareholders should be primarily responsible for any rescue, with both France and the UK reluctant to move first and lose negotiating power. The UK sold its stake in Eurostar in 2015, leaving the French government with a majority 55 per cent stake via the state-owned railway SNCF, and Belgium 5 per cent. //
Financial Times April 2021.
They are skint without our hostage payments and blackmail tariffs.
Anothe Brexit benefit for you Hymie.
\\The social media post shared by Mr Daubney shows a post on Twitter in 2019 by Campbell, which reads: "If we leave, Nissan leave" - referring to the Brexit referendum, and when some large companies were debating whether to move branches and offices out of the UK due to uncertainties.
Poking fun at the written post, Martin Daubney claimed the "reality" in Nissan’s latest business move is to lead a "£2bn investment in UK electric car plant", a headline which was posted alongside the hashtag "#DespiteBrexit".
https:/
"Prior to Brexit, there would have been no need to process those travelling from Amsterdam to London on Eurostar – other than to wave them through as they held their passports."
Fortunately that is no longer the case.
The Dutch rail authorities have had seven years to ensure their station in Amsterdam would be able to process Eurostar passengers satisfactorily. The new processing requirements did not appear yesterday. They have singularly failed to plan properly.
Eurostar is struggling. Its passenger numbers are down (and will reduce even further when Amsterdam Centraal closes to their trains). They no longer serve Ebbsfleet or Ashford in Kent are are unlikely to do so in the near future. This is not the fault of Brexit. They were hit hard by Covid, but so were the airlines, but their traffic has retuned to pre-Covid levels and on some routes is exceeding it. There is no reason why their Amsterdam trains cannot continue to run but terminate at Rotterdam (from where there is a decent onwards service to Amsterdam, taking about 40 minutes). But they've chosen not to.
All normal countries operate border controls for international travellers. The level of stringency varies, but they all do it to a greater or lesser degree. Travellers moving between the UK and those normal countries are used to it. Most have got used to the new arrangements necessary for travelling to Europe and the airports both here and in the EU seem to be coping well. The railways less so, but that is hardly the fault of Brexit.
As an aside, those currently roaming freelt around the Continent courtesy of the ridiculous Schengen Agreement are soon likely to find they will need to dust off their passports. Schengen countries seem to be in the process of slowly but surely recovering their senses as they introduce border controls in reaction to the migrant crisis.
Always worth reading and investigating further to uncover the truth behind the mis-quotes and misleading answers on AB..
This is the news item in full for those who care to read it.
Eurostar trains carrying almost a third fewer passengers
https:/
The boss of Eurostar has said its trains between the UK and Paris are carrying 30% fewer passengers.
Chief executive Gwendoline Cazenave said with post-Brexit border checks and current levels of border staff, there were "bottlenecks" in stations.
Eurostar is currently running 14 services per day between London and Paris, compared with 18 in 2019.
Ms Cazenave said the company might not restore some services suspended last year due to the problems.
"The thing is now we are not able to run the same transport offer as what we had before in 2019, because of bottlenecks in stations," she said.
"We have a main issue in Eurostar terminals because of the new boarding conditions between the UK and EU, because of the impact of Covid, because of staff in the stations."
Ms Cazenave also said that Eurostar and both French and UK authorities were working hard on solutions such as having more border staff.
Last year, Eurostar announced it was halting its direct service from London to Disneyland Paris and also stopped services calling at Ebbsfleet or Ashford International stations.
It cited reasons which included financial problems due to losses suffered during the height of the pandemic and post-Brexit border checks - with more time needed to stamp UK passengers' passports.
Asked if the services would be reinstated in the future, Ms Cazenave said: "We'll see, it depends on the way we can handle the big stations' issues."
She said the company's "objective" was to "be this backbone between big cities", such as London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.
"These are the main cities, these are the main markets.... we are working for, which is our main role I would say," she said.
Currently, UK passengers travelling to the EU need their passport stamped when they cross the border, which has caused delays.
An Entry/Exit System, or EES, will replace the checks, but the technology has been delayed several times and is now due to be implemented at the end of 2023.
But concerns have been raised that initial registration for the system could cause delays to Eurostar services and lead to queues at the Port of Dover, as under the scheme people entering the bloc from non-EU countries - including the UK - will need to register fingerprints and a photo with their passport details.
Once travellers have given their fingerprints and details, that registration will be valid for three years. During that time it must be validated every time someone crosses the border.
Ms Cazenave told the BBC Eurostar was "pushing" for the system to be completely digital, meaning people could register details at home before they travel and it would "not be a bad customer experience".
"We know it's a big deal, we know it's a really big challenge," she said.
The Eurostar boss said the system would still work without "digitisation", but added it would need "a lot of investment, anticipation and staff.
On Tuesday, Eurostar announced its new brand which involved a merger between Thalys and Eurostar and said it hopes to carry 30 million passengers a year by 2030.
// those currently roaming freely around the Continent courtesy of the ridiculous Schengen Agreement are soon likely to find they will need to dust off their passports.// Togo edit.
Passsports? Steady on Judge. They may have to buy tickets though. Les grenouilles railways can no longer move them to Calais no questions asked ... on account of being skint.
Canary42 said //We all know Brexit was a total disaster Hymie, do you have to keep rubbing it in?//
In response to my many posts pointing out what an absolute disaster Brexit is for the UK, I get any number of replies from persons who claim exactly the opposite to be true.
Just to rub it in a bit more, that CPTPP trade deal that the Brexiteers hale as a fantastic success was estimated (in the long run) to add 0.08% to our GDP – compared to the loss of 4% GDP as a result of leaving the EU; that estimate of 0.08% gain has now been downgraded to 0.06%.
By my calculation, given that the CPTPP deal involved 11 other countries, we only need to find similar trade deals with just over 700 countries around the world to make up for the loss in EU trade.
Webbo3 – watch this video for the truth behind the Nissan investment – and the government’s bribe they had to pay to keep them here.
With less than 5 weeks to go until there will be a 10% tariff on electric cars exported to the EU, unless the government keeps paying Nissan bribes, the Sunderland plant is doomed.
Plus a bonus video covering the devastating impact of the 10% tariff.
&t=0s
WHy is it, then, that the airlines have recovered almost all their pre-Covid (and pre-Brexit) traffic, but Eurostar has not?
"With less than 5 weeks to go until there will be a 10% tariff on electric cars exported to the EU,..."
You missed out a bit:
https:/
Both UK trade body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) and the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) say tariffs would damage the industry.
Mike Hawes, chief executive of the SMMT, said: “Imposing tariffs on electric vehicles traded between the UK and EU would damage the entire automotive ecosystem on both sides of the Channel. Yet, this could easily be avoided by simply delaying the introduction of over-demanding rules of origin requirements.
“We urge the EU and UK to agree a pragmatic solution and quickly because raising the cost of EVs will not only constrain the transition, but will limit consumer choice and, ultimately, compromise the competitiveness of an industry on which so many livelihoods depend.”
The prices of many EVs, which are sold or made in the UK and Europe, could increase by 10% or more from 2024 when tariff exemptions, agreed as part of the Brexit deal, end.
The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) temporarily exempted EVs from rules that said products must be substantially made in Britain or the bloc to qualify for the EU’s zero tariff, zero quota regime, because EV batteries are predominantly imported from Asia.
The ACEA says that the 10% tariff could cost EU vehicle makers €4.3 billion (£3.74bn) over the next three years, potentially reducing EV production by some 480,000 units, the equivalent output of two average-size auto factories.
Under more restrictive ‘rules of origin’ due to apply from January, the only way to avoid these duties will be to source all battery parts and some critical battery material in the EU/UK. This is practically impossible to achieve today, says the ACEA.
So I would wait until January 1st before worrying about the tariff you mention. I have a sneaky susoicion, as I've mentioned before, that it may not be imposed.
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