Channel Tunnel owner could sue EU over delayed Brexit border

LONDON — The owners of the Channel Tunnel say they could take the European Commission to court after a last-minute delay to a new post-Brexit border system left the firm shouldering extra costs.
The Entry-Exit System (EES) was due to launch on Nov. 10 after years of delays but was postponed again with just weeks to go — after Getlink had built new electronic kiosks to accommodate the scheme and hired staff to man them.
The Paris-headquartered firm estimates it is now sitting on £70 million of idle investment and excess staff who will need to be redeployed until an unknown new launch date.
“We were ready, we have all of our technology in place, all of our infrastructure in place, we had our processes worked though, and we’ve recruited most of the staff that we’ll need on 10 November … we won’t be able to put that investment to use,” chief corporate and public affairs officer John Keefe told a U.K. parliamentary committee.
Keefe told the House of Lords justice and home affairs committee that Getlink had been “looking forward to starting to recover that cost from Nov. 10” but now would not be able to. 
“We’ll be sitting with £70 million spent to develop the technology, to build the infrastructure, to do the modeling using AI, to install all the kiosks that we had specially built to operate in the vehicle environment. All of that will have to be put into hibernation … that’s a cost that we’ll have to carry because of this delay.”
Asked about the possibility that Getlink could turn to litigation to recover the costs from the European Commission, Keefe added: “On the question of cost recovery: yes of course we’re considering that.
“We have followed the project to the letter, we have been ready to go live and we’ve put €80 million worth of investment into making sure that it would not only be ready but it would also be efficient, so we would continue with the levels of traffic flow that we’ve managed today. 
“To see that cost just sitting there is not an acceptable solution for a publicly quoted company.”
The firm says the last minute nature of the delay meant it had been particularly costly as more notice would have allowed it to reprogram its recruitment which could have “mitigated some of the cost.”
Eurostar, which operates rail services through the tunnel, says it narrowly escaped Getlink’s situation as it managed to hold off recruiting staff. 
Gareth Williams, general secretary of the rail operator, told the same committee: “We started to get a sense of this as we were about to press the go button and have managed to hold off recruiting staff. But we sit there with a high investment in infrastructure that is idle.”
The decision to delay EES has been widely welcomed elsewhere, however.
Local authorities in southern England like Kent and Dover had argued the system was not ready and were expecting significant disruption thanks to long queues of vehicles at the port and tunnel.
They now want the extra time bought by the delay to be used to finish electronic systems to minimize disruption.
“We’re extremely pleased, to be perfectly honest. We would not have been ready on 10 November, it would have been complete and utter carnage,” Kevin Mills, leader of Dover District Council, said.
Roger Gough, leader of Kent County Council added: “It certainly does come as a relief and it gives an opportunity for a number of the key issues to be addressed.”
A Getlink spokesperson said the company “remain completely committed to a successful implementation of EES and will deliver the very best solution for travelers who are subject to the new regulation.”
“Our ambition is to offer simplicity and efficiency at the border between the U.K. and Europe and we are confident that our investment and preparation will allow us to do that,” they added. “We await next steps from the EU and will use this additional time to refine our processes and test future smart border technology.”
A European Commission spokesperson said the Commission “does not comment on comments.” They added that it had “not received all required declarations of readiness, which is a legal requirement to be able to start the operation of the system.”