1/ The UK tabled a 4th technical paper yesterday building on its plans for trade in agri-food (SPS) goods as part of an alternative backstop. It focusses on the movement of agricultural products from Great Britain into Northern Ireland, which would be following some EU SPS rules.
2/ It covers the processes and checks companies moving goods across the Irish Sea in that direction, into an all-Ireland agri-food zone, would have to go through. In that sense it builds on work already done in the current backstop, which includes 'de-dramatised' SPS controls.
3/ The reasoning is that if livestock and animal and plant derived products coming from GB are cleared as compliant before they arrive in NI they can circulate freely across the whole island (and potentially wider Single Market) without needing to be checked at the border itself.
4/ EU law states all SPS products have to be checked at the point of entry to the Single market, so this is a way of moving that away from the border. But one of the issues EU officials have now they've seen UK papers is Britain is not proposing a complete all-island SPS zone.
5/ Instead the UK wants to divide up EU agri-food rules into 3 categories - ones NI would continue to follow (probably via dynamic alignment but it's not 100% clear), ones which it wouldn't, and a 3rd category of those where it's still unclear whether full alignment is necessary.
6/ This is problematic for the EU for 2 reasons. Firstly, it sees the SPS rulebook as black and white - either you accept it all or you don't. 'It’s not like let’s cut it in two and that’s a decent compromise. It doesn’t work like that. You either adopt a model or you don’t.'
7/ And secondly, the UK plan doesn't yet include much detail on how customs duties on SPS goods would be collected. The British papers treat the regulatory and customs issues separately, but EU officials say that due to how integrated the Single Market is that's not realistic.
8/ 'They say on the customs you can apply a lot of [Max Fac] techniques, but once a product that is of different standards is within the [Single Market] territory good luck. Where do we go? We don’t have any tool to deal with it [such as Commission oversight/enforcement].'
9/ These fears have been exacerbated by Johnson ditching May's commitment to a close future relationship and Level Playing Field. 'They’re implying give us a huge waiver and we'll take care of it. That’s not the kind of relationship on which you normally work with 3rd countries.'
10/ 'Disentangling SPS from other customs controls makes it very difficult for us to track what is entering our market, difficult to assess risk.' So where can this all end up? EU side only sees one place - the original NI-only backstop, or at least something very similar to it.
11/ Its hope is these technical papers are an opening gambit - a way of keeping talks going until after the Tory conference next week without tabling the kind of compromise detail that could leak and enrage the ERG/DUP. But officials admit that is their most optimistic take.
