Shoppers are being hit by delays and extra fees of up to £5 on fashion items shipped from the EU.

Top retailers including & Other Stories, Asics, Sezane and Goodhood have blamed Brexit for the delivery chaos, with hold-ups lasting days or even weeks.

In some cases, parcels with the wrong documentation are being returned to sender when they reach the border. The main cause of the delays is understood to be new paperwork and extra customs and border security arrangements.

Under new rules, anyone sending parcels from the EU to the UK needs to fill in forms including proof of origin and the reason for sending the package.

Retailers selling to Britain now have to pay customs duties and fill out declaration forms, as well as registering for VAT in the UK. VAT relief on imported goods under £15 has also been abolished.

The import headaches come as shops see a spike in online orders while Britain is in lockdown.

Problems are being compounded by high levels of sickness among postal workers due to Covid.

Meanwhile, some retailers and delivery firms are charging fees to cover the cost of the extra red tape. Parisian fashion brand Sezane told customers that ‘due to Brexit’ all UK orders will be charged a £5 admin fee. 

Courier firm TNT is slapping £4.31 on all shipments to and from the EU, rival UPS is charging £4.50 per package and DHL is insisting on €5 per shipment. DPD, which said one in five parcels had been returned because of paperwork issues, is charging £3.50 on packages to cover ‘clearance, handling, and processing costs’. It is unclear whether such costs will be passed on to shoppers.

& Other Stories, which is owned by Swedish fashion giant H&M, admitted it had suffered delays ‘for a limited period’ because of Brexit. Asics and Goodhood also warned online customers about Brexit hold-ups. 

A senior retail source said: ‘Some European retailers have clearly said it’s too much hassle to deliver to the UK and slapped big delivery charges on posting to us.’

James Hookham, of the Global Shippers Forum, said: ‘These delays will diminish in time as familiarity breeds content with the process, or contempt at the new prices.

‘But everyone is in novice mode at the moment so delays are inevitable for a while as the new arrangements bed down.’ Catherine Shuttleworth, of retail specialists Savvy Marketing, said delays could mean opportunities for UK-based brands to ‘steal shopper share.’

One could almost hear the collective sighs of relief from Brussels and the capitals of the major European Union (EU) countries Saturday over the election of a new chairman of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU (conservative) party.

On the second ballot at a virtual party conference, Armin Laschet, governor of Germany’s most populous state and a close ally of Merkel, won by a vote of 522-466 over conservative Friedrich Merz — no friend of Merkel or the EU.

Nigel Farage, father of the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” initiative and easily Europe’s best known Euroskeptic, spoke for many on the right in Europe following the vote of the CDU.

“Merz as leader would have believed in the free market and not Brussels’ dictates,” Farage told Newsmax.

Of Laschet, who now looms large as Merkel’s successor as chancellor when she steps down later this year, Farage said without hesitation: “Germany now has a weak pro-EU leader and the block of European Union nations will continue to fall behind the rest of the world.”

A onetime floor leader of the CDU in the Bundestag (parliament), Merz, 65, was an arch-rival of Merkel in her successful campaign to lead the party and become chancellor 16 years ago. In recent years, he has served as chairman of BlackRock Germany and become a millionaire several times over.

Merz made no secret of his desire to move the CDU from the centrist party it has become under Merkel to being a home for “goodwill, traditional conservatives” who is recent years have been “self-radicalizing” and moving to the more conservative Alternative for Germany (AFD) Party.

“I’m skeptical about transferring more powers to the European Union,” Merz said in a recent debate among the candidates for CDU leadership, “I don’t want to see an EU in which our identity dissolves and we’re all just Europeans.”

In contrast, North Rhine-Westphalia Gov. Laschet, 59, has been a longtime EU cheerleader in his other capacity as chairman of the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Throughout the campaign, he closely identified himself with Merkel and told reporters recently: “The CDU must convey the idea that the 16 years when [Merkel] was chancellor were good years, and that we stand by her policies.”

Going back to when it was West Germany before it united with the former Communist East Germany in 1991, Germany has been ruled by the CDU for 50 of the past 70 years.

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. 

The European Union has temporarily ceased 88 million euros ($107 million) in budget support for Ethiopia until humanitarian agencies are provided access to those in need of aid in the northern Tigray region.

On Friday, EU High Representative Josep Borrell called on Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to fulfil the values inherent to the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in 2019 by working to end the ongoing conflict in Tigray.

“We are ready to help, but unless there is access for humanitarian aid operators, the EU cannot disburse the planned budget support to the Ethiopian government”, Borrell said.

“We receive consistent reports of ethnic-targeted violence, killings, massive looting, rapes, forceful returns of refugees and possible war crimes”, he added.

The top diplomat also called for a calming of tensions with neighbour Sudan and said that the involvement of other countries made the conflict a “direct threat to the stability of the whole region”

He said it was in the “best interest of Ethiopia and the wider region” to permit humanitarian access and to “resume the path towards an inclusive and sustainable peace”.

“Regional experiences are relevant here: Sudan stared into the abyss of civil war two years ago, before the parties to its political dispute stepped back and chose a peaceful transition instead. Ethiopia was the midwife to that transition, together with the African Union and the United Nations”.

“Maybe Khartoum can now return the important effort. But this requires that there first be a de-escalation of tensions between the two countries”, he said.

Ethiopia says it is becoming impatient with a Sudanese military build-up in territory populated by Ethiopian farmers on the Sudanese side of a border dispute.

Sudan’s foreign ministry accused the Ethiopian military aircraft of crossing their border in a “dangerous and unjustified escalation”.

While the reports of killings remain unsubstantiated due to a lack of international access to the region, the United Nations said on Thursday major violations of international law had taken place in Tigray at two refugee camps, home to those who fled repression in neighbouring Eritrea prior to the most recent flare-up in violence.

The body claims satellite imagery showed fires burning and fresh signs of destruction at the Shimelba and Hitsats camps but the UN refugee agency, which has criticised the lack of humanitarian access to the sites, has not said who they believe is responsible.

Eritrea’s Information Minister, Yemane Meskel, tweeted on Friday that the UNHCR “seems to indulge, yet again, in another bout of gratuitous & irresponsible smear campaigns against Eritrea”.

​Both Asmara and Addis Ababa deny the presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray. However, a senior Ethiopian general has since confirmed that they had crossed into the northern region without invitation.

Over the past 7 years, the EU has provided 815 million euros of development aid to Ethiopia, which comes on top of 409 million euros for projects intended for supporting refugees and host communities in the African nation.

Why is there conflict?

Violence been raging since the 4 November, after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a popular guerrilla organisation in the northern region.

Prime Minister Ahmed claims that the military manoeuvre was a response to the TPLF attacking a military installation where government troops were being housed in Tigray.

In September 2020, Tigray rebuked federal COVID-19 restrictions and held regional parliamentary elections. In response, federal authorities rejected the results, calling the local authorities a “junta” and “fugitives from justice” who must be “made accountable by law” following the November offensive.

The TPLF was the largest political organisation in a ruling coalition since 1991, which took power after the fall of the Derg military regime.

However, after the ascension of Abiy Ahmed to the office of the prime minister, the regional representatives were sidelined by the new government and withdrew in 2019.

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            Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh has slammed the European Union for its unreasonable, non-constructive, and unwise decision to blacklist Mr Faisal Mekdad, the Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates.
        </blockquote>

        <!-- content -->In a statement on Saturday, Khatibzadeh said the EU’s move to sanction the Syrian foreign minister will escalate the crisis in the Arab country and further complicate the political settlement of this crisis.

“Such an unpleasant measure will only result in further divergence and distrust between Brussels and Damascus. At a time when the Syrian crisis needs a political solution, blacklisting the country’s foreign minister as the person in charge of Syria’s foreign policy means nothing but obstructing the peace process,” the Iranian spokesman said.

He strongly called on the European Union to reconsider its decision, especially at a time when it was expected to condemn the Zionist regime’s attacks and aggression against the Syrian territory in violation of the country’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and express its serious opposition to the US’ unjust sanctions against the Syrian nation.

Khatibzadeh described the decision as unwise.

The European Union added Mekdad to its sanctions list on Friday.

“As a Government Minister, [he] shares responsibility for the Syria regime’s violent repression against the population,” the European foreign affairs ministers said.

Mekdad was appointed as Syria’s top diplomat in November 2020.

The EU has imposed sanctions against the Syrian regime since 2011. The restrictive measures include travel ban and asset freeze for Syrian government officials and prominent business people benefiting from the war economy.

The sanctions also prohibit the import of oil, and apply export restrictions on equipment or technology that could be used for the war.

In total, 289 Syrian individuals and 70 entities are blacklisted by the EU.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is taking legal action at the global trade watchdog against the European Union and member states France and Lithuania for restricting palm oil-based biofuels, the government said.

The world’s second largest palm oil producer, which has called a EU renewable-energy directive “discriminatory action,” is seeking consultations under the World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Mechanism, the Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry said in a statement on Friday (Jan 15).

Minister Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali said the EU proceeded with implementing the directive without considering Malaysia’s commitment and views, even after Malaysia gave feedback and sent economic and technical missions to Europe.

The EU directive “will mean the use of palm oil as biofuel in the EU cannot be taken into account in the calculation of renewable energy targets and in turn create undue trade restrictions to the country’s palm oil industry,” he said in the statement.

The ministry filed the WTO request with cooperation from the Attorney General’s Chambers and the International Trade and Industry Ministry, taking action it had warned of in July against EU Renewable Energy Directive II.Advertisement

Malaysia will act as a third party in a separate WTO case lodged by neighbouring Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer, as a sign of solidarity and support, the ministry statement said.

ROME, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) — The head of the Italian division of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei said Friday that Italy was in a position to close its long-standing “digital gap” with other countries in western Europe if it used the money from the European Union’s (EU) recovery fund effectively.

Speaking to the daily newspaper La Stampa, President of Huawei Italy Luigi De Vecchis said Italy’s 222-billion-euro (270-billion-U.S.-dollar) share of the recovery fund presented “an opportunity to end the digital divide between our country and the rest of Europe.”

A Huawei-Italy media office official confirmed the accuracy of the comments when contacted by Xinhua.

The EU recovery fund is financial backing for countries aimed at limiting the impacts of the global coronavirus outbreak.

De Vecchis, a former chief executive of the Siemens Network who took the reins of Huawei-Italy in 2018, said companies and government officials should work to convince skeptical elements in Italy that 5G antennae — “5G” is short for fifth-generation technology standards that allow for dense and high-speed wireless communication — are safe and necessary for Italy’s digital advancement.

He said that the coronavirus pandemic that has resulted in a dramatic increase in working from home is making the development of fast and easily-accessible communication networks more important than ever before.

“Current networks are inadequate and in Italy, there is a digital divide that goes beyond the limits of access in rural areas,” De Vecchis said. “To bring us to the level of other countries we have to develop fiber-optic networks and 5G.”