Interruption of access to French customs systems!
French customs access interrupted!.
HMRC has announced that French Customs is replacing its main IT server on Tuesday 8 August. This will cause an interruption in access to French customs systems between 8am and 4pm (UK time). This will affect all French customs-related teleservices (Delta-G [declarations] and Delta-T [transit]) and although the Brexit SI may remain functional, it will not work effectively due to connections to other systems.
At the port of Calais, empty lorries will be diverted to the green lane, while movements carrying goods will be diverted to car parks in the orange lane for manual inspection by customs.
Transit shipments to France cannot be diverted through the green lane; they will be directed to the orange car parks for manual inspection by customs. To speed up the process, France has required drivers to have paper TADs (Transit Accompanying Documents) for inspection - French officials will take photos of the paper TADS documents for subsequent NCTS updates.
For transit movements from France, the GVMS has a function to transfer manual transit movements; the trader should use the 'SAD Declaration' and enter the manual transit reference number generated under the fallback procedure. The GVMS will automatically direct these movements to the Border Force facility for authentication of their documents. The Border Force will then process all manual OoT functions and OoDes, if applicable.
Carriages with a pre-submitted declaration are more difficult to accommodate and contingency processes should be used in paper form (this is assumed to have a greater impact on French companies). Contingency procedures for Delta-G and Delta-T will be approved from 8am (UK time) and supporting documents should be paper-based.
French customs are bringing in additional customs officers to speed up processes on the ground, and additional truck parking spaces have been generated, including in Calais - the overall impact is expected to be less due to a significant amount of mitigation and preparation.
France said carriers including DFDS, P&O, Irish Ferries and Eurotunnel have been asked to stagger traffic throughout the day to allow for additional manual processes and have been asked to circulate the news to the trade.
IMPORTANT - Exports from France to the UK will not be affected, which will be processed as usual!
