Blog Archive

Thursday 27 February 2020

Boris Stands Firm Against the EU for Trade Deal


by Louise Mclean

In response to the EU's negotiating mandate which was revealed on Tuesday, Boris Johnson's government has today produced its own 30 page mandate, setting out its red lines, which are clearly at loggerheads with the EU.

Today Michael Gove made a statement in Parliament saying that at the end of the transition we will fully recover our economic and political independence.  'We want the best trading relationship with the EU but we will not trade away our sovereignty'.  You can watch the statement here.

Yesterday Boris announced that he would not be bound by the Political Declaration, which he believes is not legally binding and says that his own Conservative manifesto supersedes it.  He wants to go back on previous agreements in the PD on fishing rights, borders and state aid rules and he has refused to create infrastructure for a border for goods coming in from Northern Ireland. All this sets him on a collision course with Michel Barnier who says the Political Declaration must be 'followed to the letter'.

So the Prime Minister has quietly dropped some of the elements of the Political Declaration and the EU has done the same on financial services and personal data, which were to be settled by June 2020 and December 2020 respectively.   

The EU has also altered its stance since the signing of the Political Declaration, as there had been only one paragraph dealing with 'a level playing field' or regulatory alignment but there are now 20 in its mandate!  

The UK government says that a Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement should be 'at the core' of a trade deal, on the lines of those already signed by the EU with Canada and other countries.  This should include other agreements covering fisheries, law enforcement and judicial cooperation on crime, transport and energy but with no role for the European Court of Justice.  Britain is determined to take back control of its borders, laws and money.  

Both sides are in agreement regarding signing up to a zero tariff trade deal but Michel Barnier says that checks must be made for goods coming into the EU from Britain, as they cannot accept goods that are coming from all over the world.  

The EU might later use financial services and other services with member states as a political football, which it has recently threatened to do.    

Knowing how much the EU fear a No Deal, the UK has told Barnier that a trade deal must be agreed by the end of June and finalised by the end of September, or No Deal will be back on the table and Britain will start preparing to leave the transition at the end of the year by trading with the EU under World Trade Organisation rules.

The government has warned in that case trading at the border from January 2021 might not be frictionless and new infrastructure will have to go up in ports to deal with this.  

Boris has also clearly stated that he will not extend the transition period under any circumstances.

Formal talks for a trade deal between the EU and Britain commence next Monday 2nd March. 

Boris Johnson's government is taking a completely different stance from Theresa May's, which seemingly agreed everything that was presented to them. Now the EU must wake up to the fact that they are dealing with a completely different entity that hopefully won't back down!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Retained EU Laws and Latest Migration Figures

by Louise Mclean Retained EU Laws It has recently been revealed that despite a Bill to remove unnecessary EU Laws from the British Parliamen...