This sounds ridiculous on every level. (Not that I can see the article).
It doesn’t actually give Britain meaningful leverage, because the commission and advice is all controlled by arch-federalists who don’t actually care about this.
It’s not like a “race-to-the-bottom” scenario will significantly effect trade anyway. Reduced cheap labour is going to more than offset any cost efficiencies that can be achieved through labour market reform (which wont happen anyway) and deregulation. Exports to the EU will have to meet EU regulations anyway. The UK market might become more competitive due to the removal of barriers to entry to small producers, but that’s not going to produce the kind of headline short/medium term impacts that would make the EU nations care anyway.
A slump in the pound would hurt EU industry far far more than any of this stuff. I guess that might give the UK some leverage? Hahahahaha.
I don’t know. The whole negotiation process is entirely screwed up on both sides.
The recent row on EU citizens’ rights during the transitional period is another instance of the UK government says that stuff understood by the commission to have been agreed upon was “misunderstood”.
I am starting to think no real deal will be made unless the UK changes government and either backs down or accepts a very soft Brexit (customs union and paying big bucks to keep financial passporting). But it doesn’t seem that can happen with May at the lead. I see opportunity for movement in the UK, but not really in the EU, although I guess we’ll find out in March.
But this is looking like the Greek bailout negotiations.
Really, we have like a year to go and only very few things are agreed upon (and those seem to be open for interpretation).
Have you read the phase one agreement? Because the UK’s position in the recent row is fully consistent with the agreement, and the EU27’s directly contravenes it.
What’s the point in insisting on spending months settling the “phase one” issues if the moment you start negotiating something else you reopen the phase one issues?
I can see the logic of extending some of the phase one terms through a transition period, but it certainly wasn’t already agreed.
Yeah, the transition period is not part of the written agreement.
But it is my understanding there was an unspoken agreement about a transition period during which EU laws would be in full force (or at least the UK government made strongly suggested it, but I might be mistaken), and that’s what I was referencing.
The row isn’t about eu laws being in full force, it’s about people exercising the right of free movement acquiring the additional (post Brexit) rights stipulated in the phase one agreement.
I’ve never understood why both May and Cameron didn’t have MI6 assassinate Johnson. It would have made things so much easier for both of them. What’s the point of even having a 00 section if you don’t use it, after all…
Well, we are at March, and Brexit by EU timetable continues.
A framework for a CETA-style trade deal has been offered. As Aceris predicted. And it’s six (rather than my predicted three!) pages long. It certainly won’t be turned into a full FTA treaty to be concluded before October as Davis insists; it remains to be seen if it can be concluded before the end of any transition agreement.
Speaking of which, the transition agreement appears stuck. Britain’s position has been to solve the Irish border issue by a ‘creative’ and ‘ambitious’ trade deal, but we seem a long, long way from anything resembling that. Trade talks progress only on the signing of the withdrawal agreement, which certainly must conclude by October. The UK only got this far by signing up to a ‘backstop’ position on ‘full alignment’ for Northern Ireland which - as everyone suspected - they don’t seem to interpret the same way everyone else does. What a mess.
I’m lost as to what HMG can do here; they’ve boxed themselves in so well, I don’t know how they climb down. Maybe some clever fudge can be found. I hope so. There’s no good way out of this situation any more.
To be fair, if the document put forward today forms the basis of the FTA, the border issue is basically solved. But it’s clearly not going to unless the UK totally capitulates (which does remain a strong possibility).
EEA membership remains the best way out short of formal withdrawal of the Article 50 notice (assuming that were even possible), but it’s obviously not something this government could do. It is something I can imagine the Commons doing following a no-confidence vote, but not the way MPs are currently behaving.
From my reading of the text, as long as the UK performed appropriate checks on non-EU imports, as currently, there would be no need for any physical border.
Isn’t this called ‘The Customs Union’? The corollary to that reading it is that if they don’t do those checks (and were out of that process), there would need to be a border. It seems to just leave the actual result open, but they’ll implement what needs to be implemented given the agreement.
This also doesn’t resolve non-tariff barriers that would disrupt the all-island of Ireland economy (though how much this affects the Good Friday Agreement I do not know).
No, the customs union means no separate trade deals. The rules of origin stuff and appropriate customs cooperation is supposed to ensure the UK doesn’t become a backdoor into the customs union.
Non tariff barriers are addressed:
I should say, it would make the border unnecessary for trade. There’s still the question of immigration, but the UK seems surprisingly relaxed about that and thinks it can handle it through tightening labour controls domestically.
As long as the common travel area applies, this seems fair enough. It is legal immigration that they (claim) they want to reduce.
But let’s return to the Customs Union point. If the UK leaves the Customs Union, how will the UK ensure it isn’t a backdoor into the Customs Union? Or better: how will the EU ensure it? Without a border?
I’m not sure this paragraph is the EU saying ‘we’ll take your word for it!’.
Even if it were, I don’t see how this part proposes that the UK could both allow imports without EU say-so (i.e. have seperate trade deals) and have no border on its side to check what’s leaving into the EU. It seems just to say ‘we’ll do what is appropriate for what we agree’. (“The agreement would address: appropriate customs cooperation.”) And that includes checks if needed (“preserve the regulatory and jurisdictional autonomy of the parties”) that are robust enough to stop smuggling (preserving "the integrity of the EU customs union”).
" At the border the mobile phone of the driver is recognized/identified and a release-note is sent to the mobile phone with a permit to pass the border that opens the gate automatically when the vehicle is identified…"
Yes, I think there is lots of good detail in that about how such a border might work in practice. It seems a long way from what Irish and Northern Irish Republicans want, and quite a bit more infrastructure than we have now.
But maybe this is what will happen, and there will just be a smart, speedy border between NI and Ireland.
Nice in theory, but not sure if would work in practice. I’m amused that they cite the American-Canadian border as an example. The last time I drove across it took about two hours. I’ve never crossed from Norway to Sweden, but I know there are checkpoints on that border too.
