Immediate and pressing Q of White Paper: does it help resolve remaining issues on Withdrawal Agt?
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Main one is Irish dimension, including borders, extent of regulatory alignment & security.
WP barely mentions IE, except to say backstop won't be needed (not explained how)
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WP barely mentions IE, except to say backstop won't be needed (not explained how)
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Second biggie is judicial & administrative arrangements
WP offers model of arbitration and Jt Cte for mgt, but still confusing on ECJ powers
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WP offers model of arbitration and Jt Cte for mgt, but still confusing on ECJ powers
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Data protection is third area
Again WP hasn't moved on from previous statements
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Again WP hasn't moved on from previous statements
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Then we have status of ongoing police & judicial cooperation in criminal matters
WP has some language on this, although still largely where it was
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WP has some language on this, although still largely where it was
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Nothing either on implementation & management of the Withdrawal Agt, although one might expect some working back from the post-transition proposals
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And lastly, there's some language about protecting situation of Gibraltar and Sovereign Bases, but no explicit mechanisms for so doing
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Overall, that means there's not much directly to help get things moving within Art.50
however
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however
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Important to recall that HMG is tackling this by trying to set an end-state for future relationship, so it can work back to what happens between now and then
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So argument would be that if we know and agree where we're going, then interim is less important, mainly because we can roll stuff over
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To take comment from @CJCHowarth, if can agree future of IE dimension, then can also agree to backstop, because it won't apply as parties would continue w transition model until future arrangement ready to kick in
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@CJCHowarth Two dangers present themselves here
- how much unhappiness will ensue when this (potentially long) interim starts?
- how stable is that interim?
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- how much unhappiness will ensue when this (potentially long) interim starts?
- how stable is that interim?
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@CJCHowarth Given past week, not unreasonable that EU might insist on backstop is in legal text, just in case this all goes belly-up
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@CJCHowarth Any road, challenge for COM now is whether they will buy this approach and whether appropriate language can be crafted.
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