Duty and Customs Column

Matters may at long last be coming to a head in the long-running standoff between the European Commission and the British Government over cross-border shopping. Frits Bolkestein has been pressing Westminster at intervals over the last three years on the issue of the treatment of citizens returning to the United Kingdom from cross-border shopping expeditions to neighbouring Member States of the European Union. His involvement began prior to the landmark decisions in Lindsay and Hoverspeed at a time when the British popular media had begun to run intensive coverage on the manner in which Customs were dealing with passengers...