With June 23rd looming and the UK referenedum on whether to remain in the EU or leave a number of people have asked what will happen regards the current PETS Scheme for the transport of Pets into (and out of) the UK and the TRACES scheme for the transport of re-homed animals into the UK.
The simple answer is obviously no idea! I suspect the powers to be haven’t either on the basis that it appears nobody has a clue as to what the implications of leaving the EU will be for the UK. I may be wrong, and this is not a political post, but it seems wrong to be asking people to decide between two different playing fields: staying in is basically more of the same, leaving is a jump into the unknown.
Anyway back to the implications on pet transport. My guess? It will have no impact at all. The issue of returning to Quarantine has been asked, but my view on that is that the Quarantine Law was a result of the UK being an Island, not the EU, and the need to protect it’s rabies free status (something the rest of the EU will always struggle with being one joined land mass). As things currently stand it is only when you are entering the UK that the pets passports are checked (they are not checked at any other EU border), and it is only the UK that require the 1-5 day worming treatment for dogs (although they wanted it to become a EU standard as with the 21 days for rabies).
So we already have a variant in the way the EU rules are administered, with the UK more stringent, so why would it need to change?
The DEFRA site already has a section for the import of animals into the UK from a non EU country. The rules are basically the same with the additional requirement for a Third Party Official Veterinary Certificate, so maybe something like that will be needed, but I doubt it as this certificate is basically the same as the TRACES certificate, and the UK is already part of TRACES and I can see no reason why that would change as it was set up for the movement of livestock throughout the EU and even if UK leaves the EU it will still export livestock so I would bet will be ‘allowed’ to remain as part of the TRACES system.