EuroTr@sh

cajal wrote the following post at 02/01/2021 10:18: to reduce your costs considerably the broker should be able to select you as the sub-contractor to transport the goods in the appropriate size/capacity of vehicle you have at your disposal and that you are licenced to drive. Can it really be as simple as that? If the paperwork shows the OP as a sub contractor working for the broker, wouldn't he have to go through customs as freight and wouldn't that potentially mean him having his CPC and his van being licensed and insured as a commercial vehicle?

mint wrote the following post at 01/01/2021 21:51: I love Somerset and think it's overlooked when people drive straight through to get to Cornwall! That made me smile Mint. My only holiday last summer was managing to snatch a few days in Cornwall in the campervan, between lockdowns. It's a fair drive from Wales so we set off early and the journey was going well until on the M4 in Somerset, traffic came to a halt. And we sat there without turning a wheel for over 3 hours. Afterwards I read in the papers that some poor desperate soul had gone for a walk across the motorway in front of an HGV, and they'd had to close the motorway completely in both directions to land a helicopter on the other carriageway, to do their incident investigations and clear up the mess and everything. So much for driving straight through Somerset.. I agree the Cornish are definitely odd but I don't mind that, I like odd people, I am one myself. I once had a Cornish work colleague who was absolutely obsessed by pirates. I love Somerset and Devon and Cornwall for holidays but I'm not tempted to live there. How lovely a place is, isn't one of the main factors for me when it comes to deciding where to live. Of course I wouldn't want to be in a horrible place, but choosing a place to settle down is about so more than just the countryside.

I have to admit I that above all I am impatient to see how it all pans out. I've got used to the idea that the UK left the EU in February, I had my "end of an era" moment back then. I suppose I have always been a rootless kind of person so it wasn't traumatic, just a bit sad, I was never a British flag waver although I have nothing against the UK, wouldn't say I love it exactly but I rub along with it quite happily; and although I love France I can't say I feel at all French. When I first moved there I thought I might eventually, but it didn't happen. I suppose I am in the fortunate position of being able to bide my time decide which way to jump when some kind of a picture starts to emerge of post Brexit Britain. Actually I think it is going to be a mess and I don't think Scotland will want to be part of it, and very possibly not NI either,.I think there will be arguments about that, and I think there may also be friction with the EU, I'm not sure everything will run smoothly at first (if ever, for as long as Johnson is PM). I would be suprised if England prospers mightily in the near future, I foresee one crisis after another. But then, life is full of surprises.

woolybanana wrote the following post at 29/12/2020 19:09: Having made the Brexit decision it is up to the Nation to either sink to the level of an unhappy, scruffy, drunken little offshore island, or strike out and build a new world future. Exactly, that's what's so scary. Right now it's an unhappy, divided nation led by a scruffy opportunist with no moral compass, poor communication skills and a cavalier attitude towards the responsibilities that come with the job. I'm sure the in-crowd will do very well out of Brexit but I fear the UK will become a harsh place for those who get left behind (I'm thinking about the Ford workforce in Bridgend for instance, and there are lots more in a similar situation) .

Yes I was also very disillusioned when I realised what a place has to pay to be potentially listed as a Plus Beau Village. There is some kind of judgement made, they don't just pay the fee and get automatically included. Equally I suppose you couldn't have places listed without requesting it, or at least being consulted. Not every lovely place would welcome the influx of visitors. A couple of years back whilst travelling I noticed that my route was taking me close to a Plus Beau Village so I decided to do a detour and pay a visit. The entire town centre was dug up and they had dust screens in front of most of the buildings. I can't even remember where it was, somewhere in the east I think. I didn't hang around and couldn't help thinking they'd wasted their money that year.

I liked EH too. Hope she is OK. Anyway to get back to this deal. Apparently it's well on its way to being approved by the EU. I had a look at the text. It is loooooong.

I'm not EH I'm ET. On that topic, where is EH? I didn't see her around when I paid a quick visit to the dark side, which seemed unusual.

alittlebitfrench wrote the following post at 28/12/2020 Having worked in the logistics industry....I can tell you that these guys and girls (once free on Dover/Calais) drove non stop to get back home. Subject to the drivers' hours directive I hope LOL.

The point about the 36 drivers though is that they were heading somewhere in the EU and that's why it wasn't just France that was involved in agreeing the testing policy. Yes it has been perceived as a political move but to be fair, he couldn't do nothing. The announcement in the UK was also political because Johnson deliberately switched from playing the threat down massively to playing it up massively, to avoid the political embarrassment of yet another U-turn on a bad decision so he wanted to make it look as if his hand had been forced by a major unforseeable megathreat. I have no idea how folks in France would vote, I have hardly been there in 2 years. I know the French friends I keep in touch with wouldn't vote MLP or Frexit but as for the general mood in the country, I haven't a clue. However with respect to the TF1 report, I wonder to what extent they factored in the ability of politicians to manuipulate people. I think that is a lot easier in the UK than in France; In France, the debate before an election is about policies, and it is policies that people argue about. In the UK it's about image and "personalities" and smear campaigns, and a lot of voters couldn't give you a cohererent explanation of one policy on either side and tell you why they agree with it or disagree with it. They voted Labour because the Tories told them Corbyn was an IRA activist and a friend of the Russians, and they voted Brexit because they wanted sovereignty even though they can't explain what it is or why they want it. That's one reason I prefer the French because if you don't agree with them, you can at least have a rattling good argument. I find trying to discuss politics in the UK very hard, people get very defensive and it's hard to keep the discussion on policies and ideas and theories and stop it turning into a personal argument.

Thirty-six drivers tested positive. It's not a lot, but it's 36 more than you want let in. Given the rate of spread and given that the whole point was that the new virus is more infectious. I'm not disputing the fact that the drivers are key workers and have been heroes. As I said earlier, it could be that Macron over estimated the UK's ability to roll out testing quickly when needed. It's a shame that Johnson kept repeating that everything was under control, all hunky dory, the rules can be relaxed for Christmas, until suddenly - OMG this thing is out of control, no, change of plan, Christmas is off. So yes Macron made a harsh and arguably callous decision, but it was a bad situation whichever way you look at it. And it is not Macron's fault that days after the agreement had been reached and testing was underway, the British government had given no thought to how to help drivers who did test positive. According to the local press the drivers were left to make their own arrangements and try to find a hotel to book into to self isolate. That's callous, too.

You are massively oversimplifying and overcomplicating at the same time. A border was closed to keep out the virus. That's absolutely the correct thing to do, and something the UK and other countries have failed to do quickly enough in the past. It's true that a minority paid a high price for keeping a majority safe If the French border hadn't been closed, the virus variant would have crossed the border and spread itself all over mainland Europe. OK so in fact there were fewer than 50 cases, but nobody knew how many cases there would be and that's still too many. Arguably, it was the UK's bizarre handling of the diplomatic/PR aspect that led other countries to react. The sudden hype seemed designed to create shock and cause panic, and it did. I don't know why you are talking about bargaining chips. Bargaining over what? Brexit? How was stopping border traffic supposed to impact on the Brexit negotiations, at the stage they had reached when this blew up?

ALBF I don't think you are fine. You are letting it do your head in. Stop. We all know that neither France nor the UK is perfect, and it's been a dreadful year all round. You are not the only one to have spotted this. But, dwelling on it and making yourself ill and getting into arguments, isn't constructive. Also, it makes no sense to blame French people for not taking it upon themselves to go out on Christmas Eve in the middle of a pandemic, to a place everybody has been told to avoid, to hand out a few pathetic sandwiches or whatever that they've managed to buy at supermarkets. Get a grip, ALBF, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

I don't know either. When the Gilets Jaunes used to hold drivers up at roundabouts for hours, they used to walk up and down the lines of cars giving us chocolates ;-) I worry about you ALBF, you seem so stressed and unhappy recently, it can't be good for you.

I suppose this is where we all get selfish and judge it on the bits that affect us. For me it's things that affect the tourist industry that I am interested in and I'm waiting to see what the crack is for posted workers. From what I can glean there is still some scope, specifically for highly skilled workers, and it seems that the social security arrangements will continue so that posted workers will remain covered by home country's social security system, which is good. But I haven't seen anything in black and white to confirm whether or not that work permits will be required for workers posted to the EU from the UK.

+ 3

It's Christmas day and I can't be arsed arguing over politics. However I do wonder if one problem was that Macron may not have realised how much huffing and puffing there is over setting up testing in the UK, and what a big ask it was. Maybe I'm wrong but that is the impression I get, there are people in the UK tearing their hair out trying to figure how to get tested and in France you just walk into your local clincal lab and ask for a test, plus they've been doing routine testing at ports and airports for ages. My problel is, I am totally confused about the numbers being given out. According to Grant Schapps (I think) there were only about 1,000 backed up although other sources said nearer 4000.. Today Grant Schapps is saying they have done about 20,000 tests. Yet only around 800 trucks are said to have crossed, so how does that work. And there are still thousands of trucks left. How? Those figures are from memory, gleaned from various sources, but it seems to me that the immense number of tests said to have been carried out bears absolutely no relation either to the fairly moderate number amount of lorries that were said to be stacked up, and even less relation to the pathetically small number of lorries said to have made the crossing.

@ Norman - I don't know but it's an international agreement and France signed up to it (is it the Washington Convention?) so if everything is done as per the agreement a French court should be happy with it. @ Mint - blwyddyn newydd dda :-)

If you opt to use UK succession law then you don't have to leave your children anything if you don't want to because under UK law there is no such thing as protected heirs. Literally you could disinherit your entire family and leave everything to a non relative. Forget all about French succession law and protected heirs and alt that because none of it doesn't apply if her hubby opted to use a UK will. Only the taxes apply.

It's been the case for a while that you can opt to leave property you own another country (ie in one of the many countries who signed up to this scheme) in accordance with the national law of your own native country rather than the country where you live/where your assets fixed and otherwise are. The potential gotcha is that whilst as a Brit you can leave your French property to your char lady or your fancy woman or whoever, French succession tax still applies. So your char lady or your fancy woman, as non blood relatives, would be whacked for inheritance tax. Your widow friend will be fine because there is no French inheritance taxes between spouses in any case.

mint wrote the following post at 17/12/2020 21:39: Judith, don't you admire how the medical people in France work till Christmas Eve and then restart Boxing Day? Put like that, it sounds like all the emergency and intensive care staff have Christmas Day off as well....! don't think so. I know what you mean though. I do admire all medical workers enormously, they make me feel very humble. Anyway here in Wales we decided here we would put up a Christmas tree, and fairy lights, to try and cheer ourselves up a bit. And I'm glad we did, it's nice to switch the lights on of an evening and sit quietly looking at them and silently reminding ourselves to be grateful for what we have. We're not doing Christmas presents but we've bought ourselves a few "treats" that we wouldn't have bought otherwise. We like playing board games and we also like watching our garden birds so on recommendation we have bought Wingspan, it is under the tree and we're looking forward to playing that. The village has put up a Christmas tree and several of the houses in the centre of the village have gone to town on illuminated garden decorations, I don't know if that's as per usual or not because I'm not normally here at Christmas. So in my head I know it's Christmas, but what's missing is the thinking back over last year and looking forward to next year because I don't want to think back, and I daren't look forward.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I am out of my depth with this, it was distressing to watch it progress in my mum but it was never that bad. I hope you have some kind of support network? You probably don't want to know about this but just yesterday I read a news report on the BBC where a dementia suffer stabbed his wife, just like that. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-55243890#:~:text=Elderly%20couple%20'happily%20married'%20before%20dementia%20killing%2C%20report%20finds,-1%20day%20ago&text=A%20woman%20killed%20by%20her,Norfolk%20bungalow%20in%20September%202018. (sorry can't do links). Seriously Chessie, look out for yourself.

Well, ALBF, I have never played pool so I don't know what you mean. Weegie, there is a word in that article that I would disagree with. Robert Peston says "Boris Johnson cannot name a single EU level-playing-field standard he currently wishes to weaken" but I think it is a case of "will not" rather than "cannot". I would bet that workers rights and environmental standards and targets are two of the areas that will be watered down very quickly.

I've always seen it very much like a disaffected teenager who's sick and tired of Mum and Dad wittering on about keeping his room tidy, not playing his music too loud, not rolling home drunk at 3am etc. He can't wait to move out and be able to do all those things and not have to obey Mum and Dad's rules any more - but he expects them to keep his room for him so he can pop back home whenever he wants, and have his mum do his washing and feed him etc. The difference is that mums tend to do those things even though dad may say, let the lad fend for himself, he wanted to leave and stand on his own two feet so leave him to get on with it.

I agree idun, the French deserve better too. And the Poles. And Hong Kong for sure. Many countries. The Germans are quite lucky I think. My point was, the buck stops at the border. A government's first job is to look after its own.

Well it is a bit relevant because we are where we are, because of what people have said and not said. Isn't it a government's job to look after its own population? I think the UK population deserves better than being treated like this by its own government.