EU Red Tape Putting Off Small Businesses Selling To Northern Ireland

There are many small businesses in the UK who it seems are being discouraged from selling their products to Northern Ireland, due to the increased amount of red tape they have to wade through. They are having to figure out how to comply with the new EU safety regulations that have been introduced.

The new General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) was brought in by the European Union on December 13th last year and many businesses have said that it has taken them completely by surprise. It was brought in by them in a bid to improve product safety standards, in particular products that were sold online from countries outside of the EU.

This affects products coming to Northern Ireland too, due to the Windsor Framework deal, which means it follows certain EU product safety regulations, which includes GPSR.

Small Businesses Need More Guidance

William Bain, the head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, is certainly not a fan of these new regulations and how they have affected many small businesses. He believes it is costing them and leaving them befuddled, he is quoted in an article on The Guardian website as saying that:

“The UK government typically doesn’t provide guidance on EU measures, because it’s not their legislation,” Bain says. “The real problem still is that we don’t have sufficiently good advance sight or cooperation on regulatory changes on either side of the … Channel, so that needs to be improved.”

Have The UK Government Done Enough To Warn Businesses Of New Rules?

Bain believes the UK government did not do enough to ensure the vast majority of businesses knew about these new EU safety policy changes. He went on to say that:

“You are talking about time-poor, resource-intensive SMEs, and sole traders, who don’t have the capacity to follow the … new legislative change,” Bain says.

“In some sectors, we are seeing regulatory difference between Brussels and London,” he adds. “How can we improve that this year to make sure that we don’t have any further examples like this in future, where SMEs feel unaware, unprepared and unsure about how to comply with new rules that affect key markets.”

Too much red tape and confusing demands from the EU will damage trade between the UK and Northern Ireland if it is either not made simpler, or the UK government give more guidance to small businesses to ensure they fully understand and know how to implement the new EU product safety rules. We will keep a close eye on how this pans out.