On January 2, the Danish company DFDS opened the Dunkirk-Rosslair line in southeastern Ireland. It allows carriers to reach the Republic of Ireland from other EUs without having to cross the UK, avoiding new customs and barriers imposed with Brexit earlier this year.
Since then, AFP Director Glenn Carr said the port has seen a 476 percent increase in cargo traffic to Europe over the past year.
From three direct weekly services to 15 in Europe today, ”he adds.
On the way to the ships, a sign goes out to visitors announcing “Rossaler Europort: Gate to Europe”.
– Do not cross the UK –
On January 31, 2020, the UK E officially left the European Union, more than three-and-a-half years after the referendum, and the country voted 52% in favor of Brexit. With the end of the post-Brexit transition period, the results of this decision began to be felt only earlier this year.
Irish carriers facing restrictions and delays due to new procedures are increasingly reluctant to use the United Kingdom to connect Ireland to the mainland, as they have done in the past.
Prior to Brexit, each year 150,000 trucks transported three million tons of cargo this way in and out of the European Union, quickly crossing the Irish Sea to Wales and then to the English Channel in the south of England.
In early January, Dublin Harbor – the main link of this “land bridge” – experienced a sudden calm in its flow and some ships were canceled by ferry companies.
Since then, Rosler’s Port, much smaller than Dublin but Ireland’s second largest cargo hub, seems to have become the new preferred route to Europe, even more complicated than crossing the UK by sea.
“When we have to travel with goods from one stage to another, we realize that there is not much difference between this route and the land bridge,” says Carr. “But here you don’t have to fill out paperwork, you save fuel, and drivers relax more.”
According to Carr, there are some signs that dealer and consumer habits have changed since the end of the transition period.
“Many leading Irish retailers now bring their products directly from Continental Europe,” he says. “We see big customers like Amazon bringing in a lot of exports every day.”
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