Actually I agree with you. Probably the main bits of northern Europe would stay together. The rest would break off. It would end the EU as we know it i.e. the idea of a total integration of all the different countries and different cultures; north-south.
What this would do to us (pilots) with much of Schengen becoming non-EU, is hard to tell.
Already Greece is Schengen but doesn’t operate it – apparently for domestic reasons to do with needing control of its borders against what would be a massive influx of refugees.
On the original question of the GAR, I had a long discussion recently with the one remaining Special Branch Officer here in the Isle of Man. He said the main purpose of the GAR is to be a source of information allied to the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Of course it all kicked off during the Irish “troubles” but has extended way beyond that now with terrorist threats from all over the place. My guess is it’s used more reactively than proactively. If there is an incident somewhere they will trawl the GAR’s to see who is coming or going. Even then the GAR can only provide a very small snapshot of the whole travelling public. Let’s face it for years the UK had no clue how many people were coming in and they never counted how many were leaving. It could be done on a modern laptop these days (well almost) but they have been woefully useless at doing it. My view is the extension of the GAR regulations is simply a political thing because it could be extended easily and made nice headlines.
It’s certainly not to do with cash. Most people living in Europe love to bash the offshore centres – Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Luxembourg, Andorra, Lichenstein etc. in the bad old days of the 20th century, yes, these place were money laundering havens. Due to pressure from all side including the US many of these offshore centres had to clean up their act so they have been working very hard on changing from tax havens to low-tax centres by adopting total openness. They had to or become blacklisted by the rest of the world. The Isle of Man is the one I know best because I’ve lived here for 25 years. Nearly a decade before the UK adopted similar rules (the know your customer rules) the Isle of Man adopted this openness. All the dodgy stuff left in an instant. If you rock up here now with a pocket full of cash you will never get a bank account open to take it without jumping loads of hurdles and the instant you open a bank account the country of your domicile is informed by the Isle of Man. Changed days indeed.
The OECD produces a black list of aggressive tax haven around the world. Guess who is on top, The State of Deleware in the USA, 2nd the City of London. You can imagine that was a headline here in the Isle of Man (who is one the OECD white list now) but never go so much of a mention in the Uzk or USA.
So, finally, the GAR is to aid in the prevention of terrorism so it’s probably here to stay unfortunately. My view FWIW.
Nestor wrote:
Why don’t you also write to UK and Irish PMs to ask them to join the Schengen treaty?
That would do the trick, as the most totalitarian of the “Common Travel Area” restrictions would be incompatible with Schengen. Which may be why it is Not Going To Happen…
However, there are no absolute offences under Schedule 7 of the TA 2000, so there are other ways to skin this particular cat.
@micalement, PJ.
The problem is that the various agencies in UK don’t work in a joined-up or at least coordinated manner (sounds familiar from our ATC discussions? 
). AFAIU, this propsal comes from HM Revenue and Customs, so it has nothing to do with the 12 hour requirements for flights to RoI, NI. These are unaffected by this it seems. So no step ahead for people doing such flights.
Also, 2 hours before take-off and 4 hours before landing would work out as just about the same for many flights. For a LTQ-Shoreham, it would be less, for a Cannes-Newcastle it will be more time.
What it would do is introduce mandatory outbound GARs for flights from UK to say France.
But I am still not sure if I got this right, because the proposal is so badly written, it does not really make it clear what type of flights they are talking about.
It could be they only talk about flights affected by Customs (in the narrow sense). If so, then people doing say UK-CI could really have an improvement here.
Can anyone clarify with certainty?
Helllo all esp Peter
I try not to post on fora these days but have been asked to comment.
First comments boscomantico has got a number of thing s spot on – the consultative invitation is exrtemely badly written and the UK agencies do not work in joined up fashion. It is one pleasant enough civil servant in HMRC trying to collate a lot of internal views and being swayed towards the shaven headed bullies in various uniforms.
In ushering in the online GAR system I have dealt with Border Force and their Home Office Counter parts -
as recently as two to three weeks ago I was assured that no consultation would take place because ‘everyone is in purdah prior to election’ and furthermore’ the new counter terrorism Act is a game changer’ It would seem that HMRC who ‘own’ the law regarding GAR’s (ok keep up here but a little help – HMRC is part of treasury not part of Home Office Border Force is part of Home Office – message that ‘not much is going to happen before election came from Home Office- in meantime HMRC have continued to try to clear up the mess they created by issuing unworkable Commissioners Directives in April 2013 and have (contrary to other civil servants expectations) issued this ’consultation’
I am sure HMRC felt they could slip it in under the radar – ‘good day to bury bad news’
There are several things still wrong with their proposal
1) prior to the 2013 CD’s there was NO requirement to prenotify at a designated airfield – even to this day there is no requirement to notify on the way out
2) presenting these proposals as a concession is insulting our intelligence and insulting the amount of work we have put in to make things happen
The rush to put in draconinan reporting procedures in April 2013 (which HMRC withdrew in December 2013) was nothing more than a cynical ploy to say ‘things have always been this way’ – It is the negotiating of the souk – set a ridiculous price say a million pounds and you may get nearer than half way to the negotiating limits of say £5 to £10
I am seriously disappointed and let down with one or two characters (civil servants) who are behind this AOPA made it clear that there was room for negotiation but they (HMRC) have taken everything in a greedy way.
I suggest if anyone wants to respond then do so as follows
…………………………………………………………
1) AOPA and other leading associations have always said there is no logic to treating GA differently from Commercial Aviation because there is now an equivalent to the commercial APIS system viz GAR online
2) Therefore the notification period should be the same i.e. notify before doors closed
3) It may not be unreasonable to limit such reduced notice periods to online submissions and arrivals at designated and CoA airfields thus mimicking Comercial practice
4) such restrictions as the proposed CD’s suggests and their basis is artificially created from bullying attempts to exercise even more powers (April 2013 CDs and discrimination against private flying which has no parallel in leisure maritime) and is totally incommensurate with what is being done to any other sectors
5) the measures are disproportionate to the risk and are a fundamental political discrimination from those who feel individual should not be allowed to fly
5) such a proposal bodes ill for any other sector who may wish to follow GA’s(AOPA’s?) route of cooperating – HMRC are simply sending a message that cooperation does not pay
6) whilst it may be seen that leisure flyers might be able to cope with additional pre-notifcation time and are less likely to conduct ‘impromptu flights’ these proposals will seriously damage those who use GA for business trips and will seriously damage British business versus EU business which use GA
The notification periods proposed are utterly disingenuous in the context of 2 years of discussions with GA representatives
………………………………..
Yep you got it – for the second time in 2 years I think HMRC are screwing us over – this proposal bears no relation to conversations I have had with BF and HMRC since the last stupid CD’s – they simply will not work and in practice everyone will submit late anyway
Oh quick follow on – just noticed the reference to Channel Islands
it has not been clarified whether these HMRC rules will or will not be overwritten by new rules (CTA Feb 2015)being thought up by Home Office for the new parliament so discussion on the final details and their application to the CI is a moot point (i.e. HMRC rules may seem to be an improvement but Home Office rules may overrride – who knows)
HMRC will trumpet their concession that they no longer propse to treat the CI as Uzbekhistan (RoW) in terms of required notice periods but as I said above this is the negotiating of the souk ‘look how good I am to you effendi I offer you my sister for £500 now you only pay £5’ . Such restrictions were grossly unfair in the first place
John I’m sorry that you try to avoid posting in fora these days.
Your input on this stuff is invaluable.
Yes – John’s contribution here is hugely valuable.
Some would argue that a 2hr+2hr system which covers the CTA too would be better than what we have already. The present 12/24hr CTA notice means nobody flies to the CTA unless they pre-plan it day(s) in advance – particularly as the Special Branch very visibly derive a huge amount of enjoyment from enforcing the notice period like hawks and absolutely do not let you depart from the UK if you are even 1hr short.
It looks like a red tape challenge over and we can try again to re-invent some measures to justify our job.
I fly to Germany and Belgium on a regular basis and there had been too many changes in last few years.
It is time to abolish this BS. This is part of the paranoia coming from the States. Someone screams safety and terrorism and we get a new set of new rules.
How many terrorist have been found with these GARs? Zero, nada, zilch…
Bureaucracy is on the move again, we something to fight against. Oh, Red Tape challenge is over.
Or is this part of the plan to leave the EU?
