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Comment by PeterisP | Hacker News Reader

IMHO the expected solution would be that the multinational companies who have drivers cruising e.g. from Spain to Poland can use the same drivers to run some UK deliveries as well. They go to a foreign country to do that job all the time, and it doesn't matter much for them if that foreign country is Spain, Sweden or UK.

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Slight issue is that UK is not member of single market anymore with freedom of movement. As such legislation, tolls, permits and so on get increasingly complicated. And even inside EU the cabotage that is transporting cargo inside other country is somewhat limited.

That was the situation when UK was in the EU. It was actually one of the main arguments against EU, even a fair point because a Polish drivers paid Polish wages were driving in the UK. This is something that other countries like Netherlands also want fixed so that people are paid where they work.

The problem is, Can UK pay the EU companies enough so that they can stop servicing their current EU customers and send their trucks and drivers to the UK for 3 months? What if they can't get their customers back when the 3 months time is over? What if they lose their customers to the competition that did not took the British offer?

> Polish drivers paid Polish wages were driving in the UK

There is a law specifically against that. Basically, if you drive mainly in Belgium, for example, you get paid local wage regardless of where your employer is based.

Maybe it's new or they are gaming the system? I remember reading this among leftist arguments for leaving the EU. They were complaining about foreign companies sending their workers to countries with higher standards when still paying the workers the low salaries.

It's the Posted Workers Directive. They've been revising it recently to make it more watertight: https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=471

So the expectation is that 5000 visas will be eaten up by EU truckers who occasionally bring their goods to the end destination in the UK? That wouldn't help very much and they would probably not want to issue that kind of multientry visa (on such a small scale) if they want to fix their problem.

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