Channel tunnel operator Eurotunnel is claiming millions of euros in compensation from Britain and France following disruption caused by migrants.
The demand for over €29 million is for extra security costs, staff overtime and loss of revenues.
Last year Eurotunnel’s terminal at Coquelles, near Calais, was raided on numerous occasions by immigrants desperate to get to Britain.
The Times reports today that the claim was made despite the operator recording record financial results for 2015.
Revenues were up 5% year-on-year to £947 million while pre-tax profit was up by nearly 28% and the operator’s Le Shuttle service carried a record 2.6 million passenger vehicles.
However, Jacques Gounon, chairman and chief executive of Eurotunnel, said the results would have been better had it not been for the repeated closure of the service last summer.
He said moves to improve security after October had worked reducing the number of incursions, but that what happened before that time was clear.
Eurotunnel reported traffic had slowed down in the second half of 2015 “as a result of the problems caused by the migrant crisis in Europe and, in particular, in the Calais area”.
The shuttle car market grew by 3% in the first half of last year but was also “badly affected by the migrant situation” and by the Paris terrorist attacks and contracted by 3%.
The number of passengers using high-speed Eurostar trains between London St Pancras and France and Belgium remained unchanged last year at 10.39 million.