Paperwork Brexit Bureaucracy Stops Faurie and Livanos on their Way to 2021 CDI Opglabbeek

Dressage

Great Britain

British 2018 WEG team rider Emile Faurie and his student Theodora Livanos were unable to attend the 2021 CDI Opglabbeek two weeks ago, stopped in their tract at the Calais border due to a paperwork/bureaucracy issues, which Brexit has made worse.

Faurie told Horse and Hound that he was forced to turn for home on reaching Calais, owing to a paperwork mistake that had been made by the border control team in Dover.

Faurie and Livanos' horses, which are Swiss papered, shared the ride on Laura Tomlinson's lorry, but the wrong paper was torn out of their Swiss' carnet, while the paperwork of Laura's horse Fallatijn did not incur issues and he was allowed to continue on to Belgium.

“The horses are in Swiss ownership and were travelling on Swiss carnets [an international customs document required since the UK left the EU]. All the paperwork was correct but the people in Dover had pulled out the wrong piece of paper in the carnet, and then once we got to Calais the French wouldn’t accept it,” Emile told H&H. “Even when we got the right paper scanned and sent over to them they wouldn’t accept it.”

The most stressful part of the journey was that horses spent ages on the lorry and the customs officers in Calais showed no consideration for them.

They "seemed totally inflexible and uncaring," Faurie continued. “It’s madness that Brexit has caused things to change to such a dramatic extent. I don’t see the reasoning behind it; it’s politics playing games with people’s lives and not caring about the welfare of horses.”

Laura Tomlinson reported on social media that the trip to Belgium took 17 hours instead of the planned 10-hour journey. Dono di Maggio and Robinvale were returned to Dover, unloaded there, and picked up by Emile's lorry to go back home to the Cotswolds, while Fallatijn continued onwards to Belgium.

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