I am not sure whether it is still relevant but when I travelled to various countries with expensive survey equipment which we declared on something called a ATA Carnet. It is simply a temporary import document which allows you to take stuff in on condition that it is removed within a time limit.
Carnets are, indeed, needed for the temporary export/import of commercial goods from the UK to the EU.
They are expensive and bureaucratic for non-commercial personal possessions and goods for personal use.
Another Brexit “win”
and further, if they are being imported in to the UK as a VAT registered business, they have to be declared to HMRC in the VAT cycle as “acquisitions” and when exported again the (notional) VAT accounted for outbound.
This, incidentally, is not Brexshit related, it has been this way in the UK for some considerable time and is in the main a paper exercise but there will be VAT due if the goods exported are then increased in value as a consequence of the import/export activity.
Accoding to report in FT Tobias Ellwood, (the former Tory defence minister, and currently chair of the H of C defence comittee) recently published an article in which he said that Britain should return to the EU single market to cut living costs, boost trade and remove border friction in Northern Ireland.
First high profile Tory MP to raise this in recent months.