Sorry Greg, but still no, existing UK-EU alignment does not help get a quick FTA, and it may even make timescales longer. Consider for a start that the entire EU-UK alignment at the moment is underpinned by ECJ, which we want to remove... 1/
Third country access to the EU market is thus agreed with a completely different legal base to that of members. I had experience of that in US-EU talks on one topic, conformity assessment, on which the two parties are still talking 5 years later. 2/
Now we could take the mutual recognition approach to conformity assessment, as per Canada, which in some sectors will give us a similar situation to today. But that doesn't cover all sectors, not for example cars. Do we want to cover cars? 3/
The last question is big. If you ask UK business what they want from the EU relationship they'll ask for what they have now. But if that's not on offer what details are most important to them? As yet neither they nor the UK Government knows. Detail takes time 4/
Then there's the question of the extent to which the UK government wants to fix regulatory commitments for the future. Food safety regulations most obviously - farmers and the food industry would probably like to keep them. The US would not. Decision? 5/
Let's assume that the issues the EU and UK might want to discuss in a trade agreement are the same as those in the UK government's Brexit guidance. On this website there are 50 pages totalling 983 separate notes. Quick to resolve? 6/ gov.uk/search/guidanc…
Perhaps we're happy for some of the previous arrangements as EU members to fall away. But then that's no different from starting an FTA with no alignment - we're still having to go through each area to decide what we want. 7/
We don't even yet know what kind of agreement we're going to have with the EU. Is it an Association Agreement including trade, or just a Free Trade Agreement? We've heard a few times the first is an advantage to the UK given our security strengths - but that add more subjects 8/
Talking of more subjects, having spoken to a few folk from the EU I think two things they want are access to UK waters for their fishing fleets, and access to the UK labour market. Both are going to be politically sensitive with many who voted for Brexit 9/
Sectors, subsectors and individual business will have particular issues. Takes audiovisual for example, which is normally subject to a broad exception in EU trade agreements, but where UK is traditionally strong. Here's just a summary of issues 10/ europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes…
For every sector in EU talks we need to know the different options for market access, to detailed level, value, employment, relative priorities within and compared to other sectors. And then create a negotiated package. Current alignment is scarcely relevant to this process 11/
Now some are suggesting we can get a detailed deal with the EU by end 2020 by just signing up to what the EU wants. That would be fine, but do the EU yet know what they want? In fact they don't, e.g. tough talks lie ahead on level playing field provisions / enforceability 12/
We keep talking about removing all tariffs and quotas. But what will the rules of origin be to qualify for 0% tariff? Get that wrong and 0% tariff is irrelevant. If we sign up to standard EU rules (PEM for the techies) some business definitely loses. Have they been consulted? 13/
Actually though we're a services economy. Now the CETA text has 220 pages of EU Member States laying out restrictions on access to their services markets. Are any of these significant to the UK or negotiable? Again, current alignment isn't going to help 14/
Talking of services, both the EU and UK have agreements with other countries to improve those if more is agreed with another country. We're going to have to consider the impact of this agreement on past and future other trade agreements. 15/
Around 235,000 UK businesses are exporters. Many more thousands will be importers from the EU. Their trade will be affected by the terms of the UK-EU agreement. Every constituency will contain exporters and importers, therefore every MP has a justified interest 16/
The UK-EU agreement will be unprecedented. A first time in which barriers are established in an agreement, rather than removed. The first UK trade agreement negotiation. Covering 50% of UK trade and all constituencies. My experience is unprecedented takes longer 17/
And sure the EU will say it can be done quickly. That's what they always say, for all trade talks. But let's focus on the UK. On what we want. On the difference between current access and an FTA. It is a huge difference. Then let's talk about how long talks will take 18/ end
PS sorry that all got a bit long... but wait till the @EmporersNewC thread on how long trade talks take...
