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Duty free and frequent ferries: French port of Calais unveils €863 million revamp

The city of Calais in northern France inaugurated its extended port on Thursday after six years of construction work. Authorities hope to attract British tourists with more frequent ferries and tax-free sales.

Published: 10 September 2021 11:26 CEST
Duty free and frequent ferries: French port of Calais unveils €863 million revamp
The new port of Calais on September 9th, 2021, the day of its inauguration after five years of work. Photo: DENIS CHARLET / AFP.

Coming in at €863 million, the works represents the largest European maritime construction project of the 21st century (so far). Calais is already home to continental Europe’s largest passenger port, welcoming on average 10 million passengers every year, as well as an extensive freight operation.

Work began in 2015, and the project aims to bring about a 40 percent increase in cross-channel traffic by 2030. It benefited from €270 million of public funding, including €98.5 million in European subsidies.

The new port section will begin running on October 4th.

More passengers

The extension of the port will double the previous capacity, meaning more possibilities for visitors travelling from Dover. The project creates 90 hectares of additional docking area, including three new ferry berths which will be able to accommodate larger ferries of up to 240 metres in length.

According to France Bleu, the DFDS ferry company will soon be running 34 journeys to Dover every day, compared to 15 at the moment.

Irish Ferries became the third company to operate Dover-Calais ferries when it launched a new service on the route on June 29th, 2021, joining DFDS and P&O.

“This new ship from DFDS, ‘Côte d’Opale’, do you think it would be there if there wasn’t this new port?” president of the Hauts-de-France region and presidential hopeful Xavier Bertrand said in a speech during the inauguration of the project on Thursday.

“Do you think Irish Ferries would be here if it wasn’t for this new port and these new possibilities? Never in a million years.”

READ ALSO Six reasons to visit Calais (apart from duty-free shopping)

Local authorities are hoping the renovated port will attract increasing numbers of British visitors, and that the benefit will be felt by Calais as a whole.

“British people should no longer simply pass through, but stop and spend their holiday in Calais,” the town’s mayor, Natacha Bouchart, told BFM on Thursday.

She said planning work had been undertaken to make it safer for people walking from the port to the beach, and visitors can also benefit from public transport, which was made free in Calais in January 2020.

Duty free

A key element in attracting visitors from England is the creation of a 1,000 square-metre duty free shop, also set to open in October. 

The extension will double the port’s capacity. Photo: DENIS CHARLET / AFP.

Tax-free sales were abolished within the European Union in 1999, but as a consequence of Brexit, since January 1st British travellers have been allowed to buy “duty free” alcohol, cigarettes and other items at specialised shops in ports or airports, or onboard planes and ferries.

Customs limits

However, new UK customs rules mean ‘booze cruises’ could in fact become more difficult. If you want to avoid paying import duties in the UK, you’ll have to limit your duty-free purchases to the allowances in place since the beginning of the year.

For alcohol, you are allowed to bring back to the UK:

  • 42 litres of beer
  • 18 litres (24 standard bottles) of still wine
  • 4 litres of spirits OR 9 litres (12 bottles) of sparkling wine, fortified wine or any alcoholic beverage less than 22% ABV

If you are purchasing tobacco, you cannot exceed:

  • 200 cigarettes OR
  • 100 cigarillos OR
  • 50 cigars OR
  • 250g tobacco OR
  • 200 sticks of tobacco for heating
  • or any proportional combination of the above

For everything else, you cannot bring back goods worth a total of more than £390, or you will have to pay tax and duty on everything.

The impact on freight

The port investment project is not just aimed at passengers, it is also designed to facilitate a growth in freight traffic. As well as being able to welcome larger ferries, the focus is also on the development of modal transfer, and being able to transfer more unaccompanied freight. In June, DFDS launched a new unaccompanied freight service between Calais and Sheerness in Kent.

Menna Rawlings, the British ambassador to France, attended the inauguration, tweeting that the new port “should improve fluidity for lorries and travellers”.

Calais has recently suffered from customs delays and a fall in passenger numbers due first to Brexit and then the Covid pandemic. Passenger numbers fell by 61 percent in 2020, while freight traffic was down 8 percent.

In October 2018, Bouchart said Calais would need to invest around €20 million to create a new customs system for both the port and the Eurotunnel in response to Brexit. The port of Calais confirmed to The Local that Brexit preparations are independent of the €863 million port investment.

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TRAVEL NEWS

What will Europe’s EES passport checks mean for dual nationals?

The EU's Entry & Exit System (EES) of enhanced passport checks will usher in big changes for travellers - here we answer readers' questions on the position for dual nationals.

Published: 22 April 2024 17:10 CEST
What will Europe's EES passport checks mean for dual nationals?

The EU is preparing, after many delays, to introduce the EES system for travel in and out of Europe.

You can find a full explanation of how it works HERE, but in essence it is an enhanced passport check – registering biometric details such as fingerprints and facial scans and introducing an automatic calculation of how long you have stayed within the EU/Schengen zone in order to detect ‘over-stayers’.

And it’s already causing stress for travellers. We asked readers of The Local to share their questions here – and one of the biggest worries was how the system will work for dual nationals ie people who have a passport for both an EU country and a non-EU country.

EES: Your questions answered

EU passports 

One of the main purposes of EES is to detect ‘over-stayers’ – people who have either stayed in the EU longer than their visa allows or non-EU nationals who have over-stayed their allowance of 90 days in every 180.

As this does not apply to EU nationals, people travelling on an EU passport are not required to do EES pre-registration and will continue to travel in the same way once EES is introduced – going to the ‘EU passports queue’ at airports, ports and stations and having their passports scanned as normal.

Non-EU 

Non-EU travellers will, once EES is up and running, be required to complete EES pre-registration.

This means that the first time they cross an EU/Schengen zone external border they will have to go to a special zone of the airport/port/terminal and supply extra passport information including fingerprints and a facial scan.

This only needs to be done once and then lasts for three years.

Non-EU residents of the EU/Schengen zone

This does not apply to non-EU citizens who are permanent residents of an EU country or who have a long-stay visa for an EU/Schengen zone country – click HERE for full details.

Schengen zone passports/Irish passports 

EES applies within the Schengen zone, so people with Swiss, Norwegian and Icelandic passports are treated in the same way as citizens of EU countries.

Ireland and Cyprus are in the EU but not the Schengen zone – these countries will not be using the EES system at their borders, but their citizens are still EU citizens so can continue to use EU passport gates at airports and will be treated the same as all other EU citizens (ie they don’t have to do EES pre-registration).

OK, so what if you have both an EU and a non-EU passport?

They key thing to remember about EES is that it doesn’t actually change any of the rules on immigration – it’s just a way of better enforcing the rules that are already in place. 

Therefore the rules for dual nationals remain as they are – for most people which passport to travel on is a matter of personal choice, although Americans should be aware that if you have a US passport and you are entering the USA, you must use your American passport. 

But it’s also important to remember that the passports of dual nationals are not ‘linked’ – therefore if you present an American passport at the Italian border, you will be treated exactly the same as every other American, there is no way for the border guard to know that you are also Italian.

Likewise if you are a UK-Germany dual national and you travel back to the UK on your German passport, you can expect to be treated the same as every other German at the border, and might be asked for proof of where you are staying in UK, how long you intend to stay etc – the system has no way of knowing that you are also British. 

Therefore whether you have to complete EES pre-registration or not is entirely a matter of which passport you are travelling on – if you use your EU passport you won’t have to do it, if you use your non-EU passport you will.

It’s also possible to use two passports for the same trip – so let’s say you’re travelling from Spain to Canada – you enter Canada on your Canadian passport, and show your Canadian passport again when you leave. However, once you re-enter Spain you show your Spanish passport in order to benefit from the unlimited length of stay.

If you’re travelling between France and the UK via the Eurostar, Channel Tunnel or cross-Channel ferry, you need to remember that the Le Touquet agreement means that French passport checks take place in the UK and vice versa. You can still use both passports, but you just need to keep your wits about you and remember to hand the French one to the French border guards and the British one to British guards.

In terms of avoiding immigration formalities using two passports is the most efficient way for dual nationals to travel, but some people prefer to stick to one passport for simplicity, or don’t want to keep both passports together in case of theft.

Basically it’s a personal choice, but you just need to remember that you will be treated according to the passport that you show – which includes completing EES pre-registration if you’re showing a non-EU passport.

It’s also worth remembering that if the changes do cause border delays (and there are fears that they might especially at the UK-France border), then these will affect all travellers – regardless of their passport. 

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