On 28 November 2017, INCU Advisory Board Member, Mr Lars Karlsson, presented his research study, ‘SmartBorder 2.0 – Avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland for customs control and free movement of people’ to the European Parliament in Brussels.
Mr Lars Karlsson focused his study on how to design and construct a functional future technical Customs border management model, an ‘invisible border’. He took a more practical approach since there have been little or no discussion so far about the technical solutions in the Brexit debate.
The report was based on an enhanced version of the Sweden-Norway border arrangements. In the report, Mr Lars Karlsson said that if we want smart border to work, there should be a comprehensive “trusted trader” scheme which covers small businesses. He used the example of Sweden and Norway where there are cross-border “intervention zones”. He also suggested that mobile cross-border controls will be needed to tackle smuggling. For companies which are not part of a trusted trader scheme, Mr Karlsson considered that their goods could be inspected at facilities away from the border.
For further information about this report please visit Lars Karlsson’s blog.