Aim: 30min less red tape
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COMMON MARKET officials are working on proposals aimed at cutting the red tape at frontiers so that the average waiting time for lorries, which is now 80 minutes, will be reduced to about 50 minutes.
Action has been ordered in Brussels as a result of a survey which shows that delays caused by frontier red-tape is equivalent to 5 to 7 per cent of the value of the goods carried.
There are, in fact, as many as 70 different types of control carried out at the 2,200 frontier posts in the EEC.
It has been calculated that the average cost of keeping a lorry waiting is almost £13 per hour, which tots up to a bill of £570 million per year. (CM, December 5,1981).
A senior official in the EEC's Transport Directorate estimates that about 30 minutes of average waiting time can be saved without complicated legal procedures.
He said: "Better staffing will work wonders. For example, a lorry carrying animals arrives at a frontier at 11.30. Customs won't accept it until the vet has stamped the documents. But the vet is only on duty from 8-ham. So the driver must wait until next day."
The arrangements at some borders are reasonably good. The worst offenders are said to be Italy, Greece and France.
Proposals for simplifying the fiscal controls, which would cut the waiting time to less than 50 minutes, have been blocked in Brussels for years.
But the Commissioner for Internal Markets, Karl-Heinz Narjes, is now making a new effort to get things moving.
His officials hope to get agreement to end the payment of VAT at frontiers, leaving firms' offices to handle the paperwork.