• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact us
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home Politics

Single market helps EU dodge Britain’s supply problems

Experts said European haulage firms have "more flexibility to deploy labour" than post-Brexit Britain.

Henry Goodwin by Henry Goodwin
2021-09-29 17:06
in Politics
EU lorry

Photo: PA

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

Lorry driver shortages have not caused empty supermarket shelves or disruption in Europe because of “labour flexibilities” in the single market, industry experts said.

They told The Times that the European Union’s single market allows the logistics industry in the continent to protect itself against the shortages that are causing acute issues in the UK.

“In Europe haulage companies have more flexibility to deploy labour to add transport capacity,” Michael Clover of Transport Intelligence, a logistics consultancy that works across Europe, said.  

“Hauliers can recruit drivers from anywhere within the EU so can draw on the whole pool of European drivers.

“Secondly, the geography of the continent and the flow of goods also enables much higher rates of ‘cabotage’ [the transport of goods between two places in a country by an operator from another country] which can ‘top up’ capacity in countries with constrained transport capacity.”

Polish market unaffected

While Poland has a shortage of 123,000 drivers – compared with Britain’s shortfall of between 60,000 to 76,000 – there are few supply problems.

One Polish lorry driver in the UK, Tomasz Orynski, said Poland’s position as a haulage hub in the single market has prevented a crisis – because it allows drivers to be spread across broader.

RelatedPosts

Senior Tory MP ‘plied four victims with date-rape drugs’

Mail hails Rwanda plan a success…. as TEN migrants ask to be returned home

Johnson says helping struggling families would be ‘shovelling’ money to appease ‘bleeding hearts’

Sunak splashes £500k of public cash on repairing his public image

Polish lorries, for example, can help to widen the supply chain in Germany to offset bottlenecks – combined with friction-free imports from foreign drivers who can deliver loads across Poland.

“The Polish job market is much bigger, we are responsible for vast chunks of the European road transport. I would guess most of our trucks work in international transport and [don’t] just serve Poland,” Orynski told The Times. 

“We are in the EU, so local shortages can be easily replaced with imports. You can see, for example, Czech trucks delivering fresh food to Polish restaurants without all that post-Brexit customs, veterinary inspections and delays.”

Brexit and the ensuing end to freedom of movement between the UK and EU, combined with the Covid pandemic, has seen at least 15,000 central and eastern European drivers return home.

‘Stabilising’

Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the situation on the filling station forecourts is “stabilising” as he urged motorists to go about their business in the normal way.

Following days of chaos, with long queues for petrol and stations running dry, the prime minister said he understood the frustration felt by drivers as they struggled to fill up.

However he said that the indications from the industry were that the situation was beginning to improve with supplies returning to normal levels.

“On the forecourts the situation is stabilising and people should be confident and just go about their business in the normal way,” he said in a pooled interview with broadcasters.

His appeal came as Sir Keir Starmer accused the government of reducing the country to “chaos” through its failure to deal with the fuel crisis.

The Labour leader said the haulage industry was “beyond frustrated” at the lack of a clear plan by ministers to alleviate the problems caused by the shortage of tanker drivers.

Related: Starmer shrugs off hecklers, takes on ‘trivial’ Tories in conference speech

Tags: Boris JohnsonBrexit

Since you are here

Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.

Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.

Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.

If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.

To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.

The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.

The shop can be found here.

You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending on TLE

  • All
  • trending
Abdollah

‘Rescue us’: Afghan teacher begs UK to help him escape Taliban

CHOMSKY: “If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

What If We Got Rid Of Prisons?

More from TLE

Nearly 16,000 children to be exposed to domestic abuse over Xmas

The explosion of the Fintech industry: Revolution or evolution?

PWR BTTM Unveil Video for ‘Answer My Text’ PLUS Some Pretty Sweet GIFs

£40bn UK budget deficit in 2020 if chancellor sticks to spending cuts

Campaign group pushing PM to let British nationals remain as EU citizens

Former Australian PM says Brexit is just ‘so much Tory b***shit’

Nigel Farage: Queen Mother was an ‘overweight, chain-smoking gin drinker’

Lucky Numbers and Horoscopes for today, 28 January 2022

How To Successfully Survive A Career Change

TV Review: Preacher Episode 3 – The Possibilities

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.