Letter: Now there is an Irish Sea border for books and knowledge too
A letter from Paul Kingsley:
You may have thought that the EU’s General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) 2024 was just there to safeguard against dodgy wiring in toasters.
However, it turns out it covers books, magazines and academic journals produced in a paper format after December 13 2024 which are sent from Great Britain to the EU or Northern Ireland. They were never added to the list of exclusions.
This has rather perturbed the GB publishing industry for some time (e.g. https://ppa.co.uk/eu-general-product-safety-regulation-gpsr), although it does not seem to have yet become a mainstream political controversy.
GB publishers must appoint an Authorised Representative in the EU. Details of that representative, and other additional information, have to be printed on publications entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain.
It is clear that there are thousands of books, magazines and academic journals flooding into Northern Ireland which are not GPSR-compliant. They are flowing across an Irish Sea Knowledge Border with a threat of fines and bans from online platforms like Amazon and eBay hanging over them.
The question is whether booksellers, libraries and academics are going to submit meekly or are they going to protest about the new Knowledge Border which puts up barriers to the free transfer of information?
Dr Paul Kingsley, Belfast BT4