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A valuable deal and a tribute to pragmatism by the parties to the Government Procurement Agreement. It’s the only WTO agreement the UK has to “rejoin” because it’s the only one signed only by the EU, not by its member states.
But it wasn’t difficult
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But it wasn’t difficult
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There was no real negotiation on substance. In June the UK proposed sticking to its present commitments as an EU member (list of government agencies & the size of procurement open to international competition). This was agreed in less than 6 months.
wto.org/english/news_e…
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wto.org/english/news_e…
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The hard work was answering questions from members, largely satisfied.
Time was needed to sort out the legal drafting of the official decision, on how best to say this was essentially status quo. One revision and it was agreed.
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docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/F…
Time was needed to sort out the legal drafting of the official decision, on how best to say this was essentially status quo. One revision and it was agreed.
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docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/F…
The EU, Canada, US, Japan, Taiwan worked on redrafting the decision.
Next: ratification in the UK parliament. 30 days later, the UK accedes.
The UK remains under the agreement as an EU member until it leaves or during the Withdrawal Agreement’s transition if there is one.
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Next: ratification in the UK parliament. 30 days later, the UK accedes.
The UK remains under the agreement as an EU member until it leaves or during the Withdrawal Agreement’s transition if there is one.
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Other signatories did not opportunistically demand more from the UK. WTO members are often pragmatic.
The same might happen with much of the UK’s goods & services commitments. But not those famous tariff quotas.
More on government procurement here wto.org/english/tratop…
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The same might happen with much of the UK’s goods & services commitments. But not those famous tariff quotas.
More on government procurement here wto.org/english/tratop…
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And in fact, sources say yesterday's WTO Agriculture Committee meeting was dominated (unusually) by controversy over post-Brexit EU27-UK splits of the EU28's tariff quotas. Criticising the UK-EU approach were NZ, Canada, Russia, Uruguay, China, Australia, Thailand, Brazil, US
Sources also say WTO members questioned how the EU administers its tariff quotas as Brexit day (Mar 29) approaches. The EU still speaks on behalf of the UK but declined to comment on the UK's quota administration.
Hopefully a news story will soon be on the WTO website
Hopefully a news story will soon be on the WTO website
And here's the full story on the decision to accept the UK as a signatory to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, a "plurilateral" agreement, because only some members have signed it wto.org/english/news_e…
