Maria Laura Avignolo
12/21/2020 11:36 AM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 12/21/2020 11:36 AM
Hundreds of trucks blocked on one side and the other of the Franco-British border lined up, with their drivers sleeping, without toilets or showers.
It is not Brexit but
Covid 19
, which has mutated and isolated Great Britain from the world, as in a nightmare of the worst of the No agreements with the European Union.
That endless queue of cargo trucks in Kent, the area where the virus mutation
is strongest
, is the dramatic picture of the kingdom's isolation in these hours.
Like during the Second World War.
France, Ireland, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Turkey, Israel, Czech and Argentina are some of the long list of countries that have canceled flights to the kingdom.
The closest countries have cut all links by
land, air or sea
, because of this variant of the virus, which is 70 percent more transmissible than the previous one.
The bans vary
from 48 hours to a month
.
The kingdom never imagined it.
A chaos that packed the Eurostar train and the airports to be able to arrive or leave Great Britain on Sunday night.
If the decision continues, the British government will have to organize repatriation flights to evacuate its citizens
stranded in the world
like the other countries, as in the first wave.
Hundreds of trucks blocked on one side and the other of the Franco-British border.
Photo: AFP
France and Great Britain are frantically negotiating to find a "sanitary protocol" to
allow the passage of trucks
trapped at the border.
The Eurotunnel and the ferries have been canceled.
The passage to Great Britain is not prohibited but no truck driver wants to enter from the EU because he will not be able to return again, as he is not accepted in Europe coming from the kingdom.
As in the war, it is expected that there will be a shortage of fresh products, such as vegetables and fruits, in the kingdom.
A news that generated
panic purchases
, despite the "lockdown" in London and calls for solidarity from political leaders.
The ban could be lifted
The French ban on British trucks could be lifted "in a few hours" after one of the UK's largest supermarkets admitted that the blockade would cause
fresh food shortages
this week.
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Coronavirus in the UK
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Sainsbury's supermarket warned that some fresh produce could be missing from shelves due to restrictions at ports.
With Britons not having a family Christmas, he said he expected "gaps in the next few days" in produce like lettuce, some salad greens, cauliflower, broccoli and citrus, "all of which
are imported from the mainland
at this time of year."
French Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari announced on Monday that a new "health protocol" would be introduced to allow heavy vehicle traffic between the UK and France to resume.
The move came as transport secretary Grant Shapps said he would pressure the French to lift the blockade, initially imposed for 48 hours from Sunday night, due to concerns about the flow of goods into the country.
The UK Transport Secretary admitted that a prolonged port closure would affect some
6,000 trucks
, due to travel between the two countries, today alone.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson will chair a meeting of Cobra's emergency committee to discuss the crisis.
The UK Transport Secretary admitted that a prolonged port closure would affect some 6,000 trucks.
Photo: AFP
France also took the drastic measure of completely closing its borders with the United Kingdom at 11 a.m. on Sunday, initially for 48 hours, preventing all freight drivers from accessing mainland Europe through their country.
Exactly hours before the deadline of the European Parliament to reach an agreement for Brexit, which continues in difficult negotiations and the British negotiators do not know how they will return home.
Clément Beaune, the French minister for Europe, said the decision was made as "an emergency and precautionary measure."
"It is a difficult measure because it is about protecting public health," he said.
Trucks can still travel to most other European ports, such as Rotterdam and Impiden in the Netherlands.
Unaccompanied cargo - containers not towed by trucks, accounting for around 80 percent of the total - can also be transported between the UK, France and other countries.
Chaos on both sides of the border
The truck ban is creating chaos on Britain's M 20 route, with heavy vehicles parked alongside the road in Kent.
Almost 6,000 heavy vehicles were to cross between Kent and northern France, through the port of Dover and
the Channel Tunnel
.
About 4,000 were to cross Dover and 1,800 via Eurotunel shuttle services from nearby Folkestone.
The army has moved with toilets, doctors and water trucks in Kent on Monday morning.
Minister Shapps said the British public would not notice any shortages in supermarkets "for the most part" as a result of France's ban on cargo trucks.
He said carriers were "quite used to anticipating disruptions" caused by problems such as strikes by French dock workers.
The Department of Transportation ordered all truckers Sunday night to stay clear of Kent.
"Operation Stack" was implemented, the system under which the M20 motorway, bound for the English Channel, is used for truck queues.
The disused Manston airport near Ramsgate was opened as a truck park to contain the thousands of heavy vehicles stranded in Kent, with no access to France.
In the midst of this chaos, the member states of the European Union were due to meet in Brussels on Monday to
discuss a
coordinated
response
.
“In the next few hours, at the European level, we will implement a robust health protocol so that flows from the UK can resume.
Our priority: to protect our citizens and fellow citizens, ”said the French transport minister.
“It really is of no particular interest to anyone that carriers do not cross.
Above all because they are mostly European carriers and the goods are mostly of them, so they will not want their products to perish any more than we would like with the closed border ”, he clarified.
The French truck drivers' unions warn "that the situation
is catastrophic
."
Fresh produce will be missing
When asked if consumers will see shortages in supermarkets, UK Minister Shapps said: “The supply chain is pretty strong to the extent that you get variations in supply all the time.
For the most part, people won't notice. "
He acknowledged that there would be problems if the ban was prolonged.
"In the short term it is not a specific problem. But of course the key is to solve it," he clarified.
Shapps also rejected requests from Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish prime minister, to
extend the
Brexit
transition period
beyond December 31 to avoid further chaos in ports.
Bodies representing British industry have expressed "concern about the impact of the border closure on products supplied to UK companies."
"We depend a lot on imports from Europe," they warned.
Sainsbury, Britain's second-largest supermarket, warned that "loopholes" may start to appear on shelves within days of France's ban on loading from the UK.
However, the supermarket said it had "many" items needed for "the
big
British
Christmas lunch
."
His warning echoed a statement from the Food and Beverage Federation (FDF), which warned that fresh food supplies face a "serious disruption" over Christmas.
IWC Deputy Director General Joshua Hardie said it was "essential" that the ban on freight be lifted.
He tweeted: "Locks + Brexit + additional border blocks is an unmanageable equation."
The British pound and the FTSE 100 fell sharply on Monday, as markets reacted to travel bans from Europe to the UK.
The health of the drivers
FDF Chief Executive Officer Ian Wright said late Sunday that the ban on cargo traffic from the UK to France "has the potential to cause a serious disruption to UK Christmas fresh food supplies and exports. UK Food & Drink ".
"Continent truckers will not want to travel here if they have a real fear of being abandoned." "The government must urgently persuade the French government to exempt freight and cargo from its ban," Wright said.
The British Retail Consortium's director of food and sustainability, Andrew Opie, said the situation "poses difficulties for the UK's ability to import and export key products during the busy Christmas season."
"While goods can enter from France, few transport companies will be willing to send trucks and drivers to the UK without a guarantee that they can return to the EU in a timely manner," he said.
Lettuce could be among the affected products.
"This is a key supply route for fresh produce at this time of year: Canal crossings see 10,000 trucks passing daily during peak periods, such as the run-up to Christmas," explained Opie.
"We urge the UK and EU government to find a pragmatic solution to this as soon as possible, to avoid disruption for consumers." Retailers have stocked up on goods before Christmas, which should avoid immediate problems, "he said.
Logistics UK, formerly Freight Transport Association, is immensely concerned for the well-being of truck drivers, isolated for at least 24 hours on the route and with the area in complete lockdown in Kent, with no toilets, showers or open spaces to eat.
"The health and safety of drivers is our primary concern. It is essential that they continue to be recognized as key workers and that they are given access to testing, if necessary, as a priority to ensure the continuous movement of goods to a country at a time. another ”they said.
Vaccinating all drivers
is being studied
as a form of guarantee.
The closure of the borders and all air links between the European Union and Great Britain came as a surprise and
caught the kingdom off guard
, amid the crisis of the pandemic and D-day for Brexit.
For the conservative Eurosceptic MP Andrew Bridgen "
something smells bad
in all this".
“A massive overreaction by France by closing borders and disrupting trade due to a new variant of Covid 19. Trying to hold the UK hostage has been the 'modus operandi' of successive dictators we have defeated.
Definitely something smells bad, suspicious in all this, "he concluded.
Paris, correspondent
ap
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