Brexit: UK to Be Treated ‘Like Canada’

Theresa May’s repeated assurances that Britain would win a much better post-Brexit trading deal with the EU than that recently signed by Canada have been flatly rejected by the EU’s top negotiator.

Michel Barnier, the former Prime Minister of France who is conducting the Brexit talks for the remaining 27 EU states, said the UK’s future trading status with Europe would be much more like Canada’s status than the special relationship May has promised.

“We will have to work on a model that is closer to the agreement signed with Canada,” he said in a revealing interview with a group of European newspapers, dismissing May’s long-standing insistence that Britain would be able to retain most of the benefits it enjoyed as a member of the EU’s Single Market.

“The Single Market is a set of rules and standards and is a shared jurisdiction,” he said. “Its integrity is non-negotiable, as is the autonomy of decisions of the 27. Either you’re in or you’re out.”

Barnier also contradicted May’s claim that a trade deal could be agreed in the 17 months left before Brexit, saying it would take “several years”, as Canada’s agreement did.

The Canadian deal, called the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) cut many tariffs but did little to lower non-tariff barriers for trade such as different health, packaging and technical regulations which often impose much greater impediments to exports.

If also offered little benefit to Canadian exporters of services, which would be dreadful news for British industries such as banking and finance which rely heavily on access to European markets.

In her Florence speech last month May said that a crucial difference between the UK and Canada was that Britain was beginning from a much better position because as a long-standing member of the EU it already had the same regulations in many crucial areas. Treating the UK like Canada “would start from the false premise that there is no pre-existing regulatory relationship between us,” she said. “And precedent suggests that it (a CETA-like deal) could take years to negotiate. We can do so much better than this.”

A CETA-type deal “would represent such a restriction on our mutual market access that it would benefit neither of our economies,” she said, expressing confidence that the EU would recognise it was in its own interest to give the UK a uniquely close status.

Out Means Out

Growing Apart But while Canada and the EU spent years trying to agree on more convergence between their market regulations Barnier said the challenge in the talks with the UK would be that the British and European systems would be diverging for the first time in decades.

“Instead of promoting regulatory convergence, it (the new trade arrangement) will aim to frame a difference” and the outcome “will be very different” from the status quo, he said.

The transition period of perhaps two years that May has proposed to ease the jolt of Britain’s departure is a worthwhile goal, Barnier said, and it would allow more time to try to work out a long-time trade deal.

“But I insist on one point: such a period would be possible only if it is framed by the maintenance of all of the regulatory architecture and European supervision, including jurisdictional. It would maintain the economic status quo and all obligations of the UK.”

Hardline Tory Brexiteers have objected to the idea of remaining under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice after Brexit in March, 2019.

But it would be a serious mistake for British politicians to assume that the EU’s main goal was to maintain its current trade with Britain, Barnier said, because it’s real priority was to make sure it did not make any concessions that weakened the Single Market or loosened the ties between the 27 remaining states.

“The strategic interest of our continent is to partner with this very large country with a permanent seat on the United Nations security council. But this is not a reason to undermine the Single Market.”

Barnier added a grim warning that David Davis, Liam Fox and other Tories were kidding themselves when they claim a “No Deal” Brexit would be fine for the UK. “Such a scenario would cause us problems, and much larger (problems) in the UK,” he said. “I will give you some examples. In London, to leave the Euratom treaty without an agreement would mean immediate problems for the import of nuclear material, whether for nuclear power plants or hospitals.”

“That would mean leaving the single European sky agreement, and no longer being able to mutually recognise pilot qualifications or get take-off or landing clearance. And what would happen to the food products imported into the UK? There would immediately be customs controls, perhaps taxes. That’s why I want a deal.”

 

by Peter Wilson

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