London (AFP)

Threatened with shortages, the United Kingdom was striving on Tuesday to find a way out of the crisis with France to allow a resumption of cross-Channel goods traffic, interrupted in the face of the spread of a potentially more contagious variant of the new coronavirus.

The strong circulation in Great Britain of this new strain of Covid-19, whose transmission is 40% to 70% greater according to London, has turned the end of the year into a headache for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Struggling to reach a post-Brexit deal with Brussels within 10 days of the deadline, he had to re-limit 16 million Britons and must now manage the decision of some fifty countries, including France, to ban arrivals from the United Kingdom, which is shaking up trade.

In an attempt to unblock the situation, the European Commission on Tuesday recommended that EU member states facilitate the resumption of traffic for “essential trips” and thus avoid “supply chain disruptions”.

The Commission's recommendation, which aims to allow thousands of citizens to return home, including truck drivers stranded in England, will be discussed Tuesday evening by ambassadors from EU member states.

The agreement of member states is not certain, according to a European diplomat.

- Concert of horns -

The problem is particularly thorny with France which has also suspended for 48 hours accompanied freight transport, preventing hundreds of trucks, on which the United Kingdom is very dependent for its supplies, from crossing the Channel.

Among the solutions put forward by London are tests for drivers.

Port screening "is absolutely part of the discussion" with Paris, "we are considering everything," UK Home Secretary Priti Patel told Sky News on Tuesday.

According to her, 650 trucks are currently blocked on the motorway leading from London to the port of Dover (south-east), the main cross-Channel port closed to outgoing traffic since Sunday evening.

More than 800 more heavy goods vehicles are parked at a nearby former airport where, in the afternoon, they honked their horns for more than half an hour, being heard for miles around.

According to Rod McKenzie, the general manager of the road transport association, the stranded drivers were offered "a cereal bar" on Monday from the local Kent community.

"Very little, I think, to support them morally," he told the BBC.

In addition, there is the "big problem" of access to toilets and the sanitary issue.

- Tensions after Christmas -

If the products for Christmas meals, although largely upset by restrictions to fight the spread of the epidemic, have been spared because they have already been delivered on British soil, disruptions in the supply are to be feared if the situation continues.

According to Andrew Opie, one of the heads of the British Retail Consortium, a body representing distributors, "the borders really need to operate pretty much freely from tomorrow (Wednesday) to make sure there is no disruptions "in the supply of stores.

Fresh vegetables and fruit could be missing "right after Christmas," he told the BBC.

The fear is all the stronger as the days are numbered before the end of the post-Brexit transition period on December 31.

Trade negotiations between London and Brussels have still not succeeded and in the event of failure, the appearance of quotas and customs duties raises fears of serious disruptions in the country's supplies.

On Monday, Boris Johnson said he had discussed the situation with French President Emmanuel Macron who, according to him, said he wanted to "resolve the situation in the coming hours".

The British leader, criticized for his management of the pandemic which has killed nearly 68,000 people, one of the heaviest tolls in Europe, argued that the risks of transmission by "lonely" truck drivers are "really very low".

© 2020 AFP