Does everyone remember Y2K?
The whole world was under the impression that, at the turn of midnight on December 31st, 1999, all our computers would simply stop functioning and we would enter the equivalent of a cyber stone age. I remember vividly sitting on the couch, watching the TV as the ball dropped in Times Square, waiting to see if all the lights were going to go off at any minute.
Alas, the lights stayed on, the computers still worked, and we all moved forward.
EU traders had a similar feeling when May 1st rolled around and the Union Customs Code (UCC) - a union-wide re-write of the customs regulations within Europe - became effective.