X : What do you think of ... mutter, mutter ... bexit.
Me : #facepalm. I want to read the whole agreement, mull it over and examine paths. I'll do that this weekend. There are all sorts of hidden gotchas in it.
X : Such as?
Me : Arghhhh.
Me : #facepalm. I want to read the whole agreement, mull it over and examine paths. I'll do that this weekend. There are all sorts of hidden gotchas in it.
X : Such as?
Me : Arghhhh.
from my notes last night, I'll just pick one. Combination of Article 107 TFEU, Article 127(6), Article 89, Article 174, Article 95(1) would mean that in effect it would be impossible for UK to have an industrial policy without agreement by the EC. There are lots of gotcha's.
With any negotiation, it's not the articles alone but the combination of articles that shows the real effect. I'll look at the weekend. Too busy today and my brain is not in gear enough (bit of a cold) for this.
X: I don't understand.
Me : Ok, now I've got a bit more time ... there are many paths in any agreement, you have to look at combinations of paths to work out the effect e.g.
Me : Ok, now I've got a bit more time ... there are many paths in any agreement, you have to look at combinations of paths to work out the effect e.g.
Under Article 107 TFEU, the EU is at liberty to provide aid to promote the execution of an important project of common European interest. Let us suppose, the EU decides to invest 10Bn in encouraging the growth of healthcare based AI. Could the UK do the same? ...
Well, the UK is considered a third country - Article 127(6)- as it has left the EU and therefore cannot be considered part of any common European project bar this being granted by the EC on an exceptional basis. ...
However under the same withdrawal agreement, if the European Commission believes the UK has granted aid or provided resources that is not compatible with the internal market e.g. the UK itself providing 10Bn to encourage the development of its own healthcare based AI industry ...
rather than providing funding to the NHS to buy services from companies, then this could well fall foul of Article 107 TFEU. The EC can then bring the case to the ECoJ during the transition and upto four years after ...
The judgements by the ECoJ are binding and unconstrained (Article 89) i.e. there is no independent arbitration panel as any decisions are referred back to the ECoJ (Article 174) ...
The European Commission is also considered "competent to monitor and enforce commitments given or remedies imposed" unless the EC itself decides it isn't - Article 95(1) - the legality of such decisions being governed by the ECoJ ...
So basically, you can't have an effective UK industrial policy during this time as it would be trivially easy for the EC to disrupt any attempt you made to do this.
This is just one minor path that raises questions in that agreement. Overall, it reads more like a spider on acid dropped in an ink vat and let run riot. Or more likely, one side has skill in deliberately negotiating and drafting the obscure.
So, it'll take me time to go through it all i.e. a couple of evenings and the weekend. Maybe our negotiators have hidden some stunningly clever paths inside it. I haven't come across this yet but I haven't gone through it all. Hence I won't comment on it being good or bad.
What I don't understand is the issues with the EU were more the EC, not the member states, the ECoJ or anything else. But what I've gone through on this agreement seems to reinforce and strengthen the EC powers considerably. Bits seem to be written to give jobs to technocrats.
