Trade Through Time: Pre-Schengen Borders

Before the Schengen Agreement laid the groundwork for seamless travel within much of Europe, customs work involved a patchwork of procedures. For anyone shipping goods across multiple countries, mountains of paper and strict schedules were simply part of daily life.

CATTS co-founder Peter Bulters, who began his career as a Dutch customs officer in the early 1980s, remembers this era well: a time of stamps, carbon copies, and carefully guarded border checkpoints.

A Paper-Heavy Landscape

In the early 1980s, manual documentation was the norm. Tariff codes were confirmed by flipping through thick binders, and any misfiling could cause days of delay. “Everything was physical,” Peter recalls. “There was no automation to speak of. If you showed up after closing time, you were done for the day.”

• Rigid Time Windows: Dutch customs offices typically opened at 7:00 and closed at 17:00, with an enforced midday break in between. If someone arrived a minute late, there was no way to move the process along until the next slot.

• Limited Flexibility: If the officer on duty was busy with another client, or simply away from the desk, the entire process stalled. Freight forwarders had to plan meticulously or risk missing narrow time windows.

TIR Carnets for European Transit

One clear example of pre-Schengen complexity was using TIR carnets, an internationally recognized transit document. “If you had a shipment going from the Netherlands all the way to Greece,” Peter explains, “you needed in-and-out forms for each country on the route – Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, and so on. It meant a lot more paperwork for a single transit.”

• Multiple Checkpoints: Each border crossing was an event in itself: exit paperwork from one country, entry paperwork for the next, and so forth.

• High Stakes: A single lost or incorrectly stamped page in the TIR carnet could mean starting the process all over. Time was money, and any misstep could be costly for transporters.

Balancing Trade and Enforcement

Although the European Economic Community (EEC) had eliminated tariffs among member states by 1968, there were still myriad checks for VAT, excise duties, and regulatory compliance. Every crossing could bring new inspections or requirements.

• Heavy Administrative Burden: Customs officials had to ensure goods met each country’s rules, often a labyrinth of different taxes, product standards, and necessary documentation.

• Focus on Accuracy: For Peter and his colleagues, precision was paramount. “I always tried to keep commerce flowing,” he says. “You didn’t want to hold anyone up, but we had strict protocols to follow.”

Nostalgia

Despite the endless paperwork, Peter recalls a unique camaraderie among officers and traders. Repeated encounters at the same checkpoints created a sense of community: drivers and customs staff got to know each other by name, passing the downtime with conversation. “We’d sometimes share a quick coffee with a regular driver while stamping forms,” he says. “It was tedious in some ways, but you built relationships.”

Still, the limitations were glaring. The reliance on physical forms made processes slow and error-prone, and the question looming in the air was whether there was a better way. By the mid-1980s, whispers of a new agreement – one that would dismantle many internal borders – started to spread, sparking curiosity and skepticism alike.

The Early Seeds of Integration

While the pre-Schengen years were marked by heavy administrative procedures, there was growing momentum toward deeper economic cooperation. The Single European Act (1986) moved the EEC toward a more unified internal market. Yet, as Peter notes, no one knew the full implications for day-to-day customs work: “It seemed unthinkable that countries would allow people and goods to cross borders without checks. That was such a pillar of what we did.”

Meanwhile, technology was beginning to creep in, albeit slowly. Large corporations started using mainframe computers for basic recordkeeping, and there were talks of introducing electronic filing systems. For most customs officers, though, the daily grind remained firmly rooted in paper.

Looking Ahead

This pre-Schengen era laid the foundation for the upheavals to come. It taught customs professionals the value of thoroughness and close collaboration with stakeholders. The reliance on stamps and manual forms was inefficient, but it also fostered a deep sense of responsibility in ensuring legal compliance at every step.

In the next article, we’ll examine the transformative effect of the Schengen Agreement itself – how it aimed to remove internal border checks among member nations, reassign resources to external borders, and pave the way for the technological innovations that Peter and his peers would come to embrace in the late 1980s and beyond.

This article is part of our historical series on customs, exploring the milestones that have shaped international trade and border management. Stay tuned for more insights into the evolution of customs practices and their impact on global commerce.