About The Freedom Of Goods

Chapter 2 of "TITLE I - Free movement of goods" of the Consolidated version of the Treaty establishing the European Community provides the basis for one of the four major pillars of what is referred to as the Single Market.

According to europa.eu,

... controls on the movement of goods within the internal market have been abolished and the European Union is now a single territory without internal frontiers.
The abolition of customs tariffs promotes intra-Community trade, which accounts for a large part of the total imports and exports of the Member States.
Articles 28 and 29 of the Treaty establishing the European Community prohibit import and export restrictions between all Member States. However, if there is a threat to public health or the environment, Member States may restrict the free movement of goods.

This renders the EU a customs union, a special type of free trade area. Well, good and nice - as long as you find yourself on the lucky side of globalization, and as long as you don't happen to live in a country which is implicitly excluded from the union, by not being explicitly included. Like, say, Bosnia for example, in which case even purchasing a kindle via Amazon can become quite lengthy a process.

I will not dive into the pros and cons of free trade vs. protectionism now (oh, just found there is an entire article dedicated to the free trade debate on Wikipedia). Instead, I want to tell you how surprised I was again this week.

As some of you might remember, I bought a motorbike a while ago. Since I found that registering a vehicle can be quite complex a task for a foreigner in Bosnia (and, I assume, in most other countries too), this bike is now registered on a local friend's name. Recently, I talked to two Austrian custom experts, about me driving to Austria with 'my' BiH bike. Bang! Shake-heads, absolutely no, how can I even think about it (that's the young, naive European again), no way!

Just to be clear: Even with a written permission from the owner, I (as a citizen of an EU member state) must not 'import' any vehicle from a third-country ... and in that context, simply driving the vehicle across the border, and be it just for one hour, is 'importing' already.

I must confess, this requires me to rethink the entire idea of 'importing'. For me, that was rather permanent a thing, i.e., with the intent of using something for an extended period, or selling it. On the contrary, the liability to declare a good already arises by simply moving the good across the border, disregarding intended duration and purpose.

But, you might think, what happens if my friend rides the bike across the border, and I just use it afterwards? Well, I was informed, that's "abusive usage" then, representing a criminal act from both of us ...

Thinking the other way round, the same is true if I lend my Austrian car to a friend here - "abusive usage"! I'm neither a lawyer nor a customs expert (however I'm guilty of istism right now), and I guess there is some rationale behind that interpretation (am I also guilty of being naive now?), but my common sense simply cannot see anything wrong about it. It is my friends bike, and he is lending it to me, so why should I not drive to Austria, or any other place I want to?

I don't know whether the EU in general is too positively perceived at the moment, but giving me the freedom to lend my stuff to whomever I want, for whichever purpose I want, is clearly a great thing ... and that is what the Freedom of Goods is all about.

Call me paraglider, motorbike owner ... and German teacher!

Wooohaa! This week is so amazing! 

In the last months, I learned better than ever before that some things simply cannot be enforced. Life is full of combinations of bad circumstances. For instance, I had wanted to make a course for gliding ever since I had given it a try with a friend a few years ago. Therefore, I decided to enroll at one of the gliding clubs close by.

However, this didn't turn out to be as easy as I naïve Western-European had expected. First of all, only in one club there was an instructor with whom I could speak in English. Second, recently a new federal agency was founded which is responsible for issuing certificates to clubs, permitting them to educate new pilots. Unfortunately, that happened that recently that by the beginning of the season none of the two clubs had this certificate. 

Later in summer, one of them was finally given the certificate (the one with the non-English speaking instructor), and I thought: Well why not, I'll not crash down immediately, so give it a try in local language, off we go. Ha, but hold on … did you know that gliders need registration too, similar to cars? No? Apparently also people at the club were not that aware of that fact, because once they had the certificate, registration for their only glider expired … too bad.

So, while me being a little bit disappointed, I didn't give up and kept looking for other opportunities to

• spend some time with or learn something cool I've always wanted to do
• expose myself to situations where I'm forced to use local language (which is not the case neither at work, where there typically is a translator, nor in my free time, where I'm mostly surrounded by people with whom I can talk English). I live in BiH now already for three quarters of a year, and I even though I made some progress with regard to local language, I know I could do much better.

Several things came to my mind or popped up accidently, fulfilling the aforementioned criteria:

• Paragliding (there is a paragliding club in Banja Luka, offering really cheap courses)
• Buying a motorbike
• Becoming a voluntary German teacher at a local language school

Having learned my lessons from the past, I thought I do my best to get prepared for all of them, and be happy if only one or two of them actually happen and the other ones do not due to facts I cannot influence.

Well, last Friday the stone started rolling … and didn't stop anymore. First, I got a call from the instructor of the paragliding club. All preparations sorted out, weather conditions for the weekend expected to be just fine, we'll start the other day. Similar as for surfing, I had underestimated how exhausting it is (at least until you develop a proper technique). Yet, the few moments where this stubborn glider accepts your will are definitely worth it. Maybe next weekend we'll start flying! (Well, I actually already did, a little bit at least. Didn't want to, though, so instructor had to grab my backpack and push me back to the ground.) Spending a weekend in the Bosnian mountains also pays off, just because of the really nice view. I can't wait the next weekend.

Next, I finally found a motorbike perfectly suiting my needs! Also the search procedure itself was funny … would you expect that, when you call an erotic line, you might actually end up talking to a guy with a high voice? Anyway, my new love … nothing new, nothing fancy, just perfect for me to get started:

Aprilia Pegaso 650 ... engine coming from Rotax, pretty close to the place I grew up. I did not yet manage to register it (turns out it's quite tricky a procedure for foreigners), but I cannot highlight enough how helpful friends were in all regards (cheers Duško). Can't wait to start exploring Bosnian countryside.

And then, there is still the thing with the German classes. Yes, I can see some of you laughing behind your screens now. Me a German teacher, how hilarious is that? Explaining a language which some people claim I'm not really capable of myself IN a language I'm even less capable of – how funny can that be? Today, there will be the first lesson with my small group of students, and once again, I really can't wait it. I guess it's gonna be challenging but awesome either.