If you’re a photographer or filmmaker living in the U.K., traveling to work in Europe might be about to get a lot harder and significantly more expensive. If you live in London and suddenly land a job in Paris, taking a camera with you could soon cost you more than $400.
Among claims of fear-mongering of what Brexit might bring to the U.K. and Europe more broadly, it seems that even the British government’s own website is acknowledging that traveling with expensive electronic equipment might be a problem once Britain has withdrawn from Europe.
On this U.K. government webpage entitled “Take goods temporarily out of the UK,” it appears that traveling with “laptops, cameras, or sound equipment” might require an ATA Carnet in order to avoid paying duty when crossing borders. At present, acquiring one of these carnets to carry equipment from the U.K. to countries outside of the European Union costs £325.96 ($400).
As detailed by this page, “Touring Europe if there’s no Brexit deal,” published on October 2, 2019, there are major implications for photography units, film crews, and arts organizations if negotiations do not go well and Prime Minister Boris Johnson fulfills his promise to leave Europe at the end of this month, regardless of whether a deal is achieved.
As well as this major bureaucratic hurdle and significant costs, there will be other implications as a result of a no-deal Brexit, such as the validity of U.K. drivers licenses and Europe-wide health coverage currently enjoyed by all European residents.
The C.B.I., the Confederation of British Industry, has long warned of dramatic consequences, both of Brexit more broadly and more specifically of a no-deal Brexit. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Johnson was reported to have responded to these concerns by saying: “F*ck business.”
Will Brexit affect your ability to work in Europe? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Will it cost that much take an iphone 11 pro abroad? asking for a friend.
" If you live in London and suddenly land a job in Paris, taking a camera with you could soon cost you more than $400."
How about vice-versa? Maybe this protects the UK photography/filmmaker market?
Could also lead to a thriving camera rental market on the continent (and one in UK).
In Germany the equivalent form (Nämlichkeitsnachweis) is free except for some legwork, so that's sort of a disadvantage for the UK… The scheme is primarily to protect the local market from native travellers buying stuff in foreign countries and bypassing import duties and taxtes, it doesn't bother with whatever foreigners bring in.
Is this not the same as going from the UK to say the US? I think a bigger issue is will UK citizens need a work visa for the EU 26. With the common travel area Ireland will not require a visa.
Yes it is the same as currently happens with the US (and other non-EU countries) and yes, unless they negotiate otherwise there will be no freedom to work in the EU and so a work visa will be needed.
I used to carry gear before freedom of movement, and it was a pain. Every border crossing meant seeking out an official to check the carnet, they often checked all the serial numbers, then you got the rubber stamp. Not something to look forward to. Every item you carried had to be detail on the carnet, and the customs guys could be very finicky. No good picking up an extra lens after the carnet has been made out.
I once had a few cameras and a carnet while traveling from Italy to France. The French said I had forgotten to stamp my carnet in Italy, that I was leaving Italy. So they wouldn't stamp that I was bringing the equipment into France. I had to find an Italian embassy in France and ask them to stamp the letter, which they did.
I've lived through the ATA Carnet days when I frequently took gear from the UK to Europe - and back. It was such a PITA. Every item had to be listed. serial numbers, number of cables, etc. I've had goods impounded at the Italian border because we stated on the carnet that we had a certain quantity of cables, when in fact we had one less. (I miscounted when shipping). Clients had to put up a surety bond before the goods were released. Not a happy shoot! Whoever voted to leave the EU must never have lived through those days - or holidayed in Europe either! It's a very bad mistake.
Without being elitist, I doubt that a GOOD many of those who voted leave have ever left their own county.
Lots of Brits living in EU countries voted leave, they think it does not affect them Freedom of Movement will work both ways as will soon find out.
Having worked in the production industry for almost 20 years, I can safely say that carnets are a pain in the bum. And that's just for shoots that have lasted maybe a few days in one location. Everything has to be accounted for. With serial numbers. And you only need one jobsworth who decides they want to go through everything and you're stuck in customs unpacking every flight case.
And it annoys me when you get the likes of Roger Daltrey going on about "we used to do it back in the day". Well, things are different now. And maybe it won't affect big bands and productions so much which have massive infrastructure to have people employed to attend to every final detail, but it's going to affect the lower end of the scale - bands just starting out, production companies and photographers who are travelling on a shoestring budget. It's harder than ever to be getting a foot in the door creatively and here we are with a government intent on putting up more and more barriers with our neighbours.
The knock-on effects of this on the UK creative industries will be felt for years.
I'm a dual nationality Brit/Belgian living in Belgium, Sounds like a business opportunity to me.
I'll start renting out kit to Brits who want to come shoot here :)
A lot of this sounds punitive. Why would UK drivers licenses not be valid in the EU after Brexit? My US license is valid.
It's called scare-mongering.
The whole Brexit thing was built on lies and keeping the masses scared.
The whole thing is interesting to me. I have friends that live in the UK. I also have friends that live in Germany. Of my friends that live in the UK, the attitude towards Brexit ranges from ambivalence to grudging acceptance, to outright support.
Of my friends who live in Germany, to a person they are nearly apoplectic towards Brexit.
What you've got to understand here is the differentiation between an orderly Brexit and a No Deal Brexit.
No Deal means everything falls away, including not having to exchange your driver's license in Germany after six months (a lot of this impacts most on British people who live in other EU countries). You've then got a question as to whether there would even be the simple exchange reciprocity.
What a nightmare. It’s confusing though - that govt site also says ‘ You do not need permission to temporarily move goods to another EU country unless they’re controlled, for example weapons.’ But it’s not clear if that means only if there is a deal.
You don’t need any of this shit to take a laptop or cameras to non-EU countries at the moment though, so surely it’ll be the same?
Is it only if it’s for professional reasons? Why not just say that it isn’t?
I am living in the UK and I have had letters (latest dated 27 August) from HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) telling me that I have to have an EORI (Economic Operator Registration and Identification) to move goods in and out of EU.
I can apply for TSP (Transitional Simplified Procedures) to make importing goods easier and make it possible to delay paying customs charges, but exporting still requires the full hoola-baloo of declarations and such.
Argh!!!!
You might not realise it, but you do if it's for professional purposes. Try taking stuff to a trade show in Norway or Switzerland, and you'll find out the sheer joy of it all.
Those who voted to leave - have imposed the consequences on every UK-citizen. That's sad. For what we've seen and heared from Boris Johnson - there won't be a way out, it'll be a hard BREXIT - lots of people in and out the UK will loose their jobs - will the UK continue to exist? What about the royal family? The EU isn't perfect - but the UK leaving will cost all of us dearly. In the US some may be happy - until the financial ball starts running. It can have worldwide consequences.
Be sure you realise what you're hoping for - no matter where you live. And those living in the US should't think they 've the greatest democracy - they 're heading towards the biggest possible debt-crisis one can imagine. Sooner or later the debt the current governement has build up - needs to be repaid.
"Those who voted to leave - have imposed the consequences on every UK-citizen."
Well, that's sort of how a democracy works. People vote. The winners get what they want, the losers don't.
What alternative would you propose?
As an aside, I would be willing to bet that a decade after Brexit is done and over with, the UK will have survived quite well.
At the end of the day, the EU has to take some responsibility for what's happened as much as the British Government for the shambles that's happened. However all said and done, Europe will feel the pain as much as Britain, from being able to use our diplomats, access to the Commonwealth, the London Stock Exchange and economic contributions to name a few aspects that's not being discussed. This was a democratic vote over our EU membership that was was never asked to vote for and hoodwinked into membership after being part of the EEC. The British membership was never an easy one, just spend any time reading the tabloids and broadsheets for the last decade.
That and and the very foundations of Europe's dream is being dictated by two countries, Germany and France with the others being forced to accept egregious policies (Greece, Italy, Spain et al) and the new fractious members in Eastern Europe trying to shape policy to their own ends. Europe could have headed this off decades ago accepting the British membership postwar instead of it being blocked multiple times to give the British population time to assimilate as unlike the rest the Europe which is fairly cosmopolitan the UK doesn't have the same ease of access into Europe. That and the UK remembers being shafted by Europe by having to fix the mess that France and Germany created in various wars and conflicts by being left to pick up the pieces.
Will Britain suffer? Oh more than likely, but I'd like to see how Europe fares after a decade after losing one of the strongest and largest, mostly positive, contributors to the EU especially when you have a stagnating economies and a ongoing Euro spinning top that's barely stable with various economies dragging it down and countries blatantly ignoring the very laws they helped create to stabilise the Euro. Europe depends a lot on the UK, more than the media portrays and the EU likes to downplay the UK's contributions and assets.
The reality this is the media trying to influence the People's Vote by scare mongering, and to be fair both sides are as guilty. However I've yet to see any narrative from the media discussing the European fallout, and why Europe has to try and bludgeon/punish the UK for having the temerity to want to leave. Realistically Europe has to punish the UK to try and prevent other members leaving, by doing so saying this could happen to you too.
I could go on, but the Brexit narrative is deeper and more nuanced than the media would have you believe. I'm a realist, but I was also a Remainer. I've touched on highly complex topics, and they don't even begin to cover the realities that all countries face now with this decision. The fact the UK Government is in such disarray and trying to block the Vote is indicative how much in danger Democracy is, we're moving to a mob mentality and if they don't get what they want they'll spit out their dummy.
The only country that'll gain anything from this is Russia.
To add to your point about Britain's entry not being easy, it was so difficult that they did not choose to join the monetary union. So they forwent the convenience of a common currency. Having to get hold of Euros does not seem to be a terrible hardship, but if that also was falling away (i.e., had the UK gone w/monetary union), I bet people would be complaining about how terrible it would be to have to change currencies every time they hopped across the channel! I did travel in Europe before the monetary union, and it was a bit of a pain to cross borders.
For those interested in reading about Brexit, this offers a well-researched and carefully sourced overview. https://qr.ae/TW2e9S
I'm not clicking that until you tell me it's not the Daily Mail ;)
The article lost me as soon as it used the word 'Remainers', which is unfortunately the 3rd word on the page.
https://media.giphy.com/media/l3vRj87FYrDhHDwRi/giphy.gif
You made an assumption about my knowledge of the subject, unfortunate.
The article is an answer to the question 'Why are Remainers so convinced that staying in the European Union is what is best for the UK?'
It's a well put together, thoughtful treatise on the causes of brexit and the people behind it. I was also sceptical but it is absolutely worth reading.
I just hate all these new words that seem to have appeared out of this mess, Brexit, Leavers, Remainers, Remoaners etc etc... so as soon as an article uses any of them i just switch off.
I did however look through this and saw the following:
"So what about all those ludicrous laws imposed on the British by dastardly eurocrats?
They don’t exist. They were deliberately made up by British anti-EU journalists, like a certain Boris Johnson.
From 1989–1994, Johnson was a bored young journalist reporting from the European Commission in Brussels. He soon found that he could easily make front-page headlines by portraying the European Commission as a bunch of incompetent, jumped-up foreigners insulting the intelligence of British citizens with absurd rules, such as:
Brussels to introduce same-size “eurocoffins”
Brussels to establish a “banana police force” to regulate banana straightness
Brussels to ban Britain’s prawn cocktail crisps.
Almost single-handedly, Johnson had created the brand of fake news known as ‘Euromyth’. He also found that this Brussels-bashing boosted his career prospects, as a lot of old-fashioned Conservatives back home believed every daft word he wrote.
It did, of course, mean ditching any semblance of journalistic integrity, just deliberately lying and scaremongering on a daily basis — but he managed to do it spectacularly well, and still does."
this tells me its not that balanced and well thought out.
I hadn't realised he was the source of those bloody headlines. I get so frustrated with the British public thinking he could possibly be a good choice.
He is generally seen as a clown in the UK, which he is, but trying to pin all the above on him being a journalist and creating fake news because he was bored is pathetic.
But I don't want agencies to do it for me. I haven't had agencies for the past 30 or so years. It's adding red tape when before there was none. Those wanting Brexit told us that the benefits would be the removal of red tape. So which is it?
An incredible over-simplification of Brexit? Whinging? I wasn't in any way, shape or form attempting to set out the overall arguments for or against leaving the EU. I was merely mentioning a very small aspect of it that will not be in the best interest of those smaller companies who regularly travel to Europe with their equipment.
I'm more than happy to adapt and overcome when the long term benefits outweight the overall losses. In this case, they don't. Maybe for the bent banana brigade and prawn flavoured xenophobes, they do.
So why not petition to remove this tax code? I think this kind of "I am gonna tax you after you have already been taxed" is unjust.
In a lot of countries there is property tax, inheritance tax, etc. Quite a few taxes which fall into the "unjust" category.
How about cut them all? A lot of countries have it does not make it right. A lot of countries have FGM too.