Thread by @pmdfoster

🚨🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧🚗🚗🚗🚗🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨🚨Brussels delay on insurance ‘green cards’ puts UK motorists in a jam via @FT - me and ⁦@jimbrunsden⁩ on a bit of Brussels hardball. Welcome to fight club - and I suspect the new normal (ask the Swiss). 1/ on.ft.com/3mmOgGL

@FT @jimbrunsden So this is a slightly complicated story, but what it comes down is that the Commission has withheld a decision that would spare UK motorists from having to print out a physical copy of their "Green Card" before driving to EU (+EEA and Serbia, Andorra and Switzerland) /2

@FT @jimbrunsden So as things stand you will need one - see .gov advice here. It proves you have third party insurance, but an electronic copy won't do. And if you have a caravan you'll need one. And if your policy expires mid-break, you'll need one for new policy too/3

gov.uk/visit-europe-1…

@FT @jimbrunsden Now the crazy part is that all this could go away in a trice if the European Commission took an "Implementing Decision" saying such cards were unnecessary - because this has ALREADY BEEN AGREED by the Card Card secretariat. It just needs the Commission stamp of approval. /4

This decision could have been made any time since May 2018 when - according to a letter I’ve seen from DFT - the U.K. confirmed in writing to EU it would follow the Green Card rules reciprocally. /5

At the time (May 2018) the U.K. gov said it was “purely procedural” and were still waiting for a response. And they’re still waiting with barely more than a month to go. Because, as Graeme Trudgill of @BIBAbroker tells me “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”. /6

If that sounds like hardball. It is. Ask Switzerland about its negotiations over its framework agreement with the EU which until #COVID19 threatened to exclude medical device manufacturers. The EU is not above using whatever leverage it has. /7

Now, if there is a deal in the coming days/weeks, the expectation among the insurance industry is that the decision will mean Green Cards are not needed - which will be a relief because an @BIBAbroker survey last years suggested over half UK motorists didn't know about this /8

@BIBAbroker Already some manufacturers have set up online portals from which you can obtain your green card and - mercy of mercies - you can print it on WHITE paper, thanks to a recent rule change. Phew. /9

@BIBAbroker In the event of a 'no deal' the hope, even then, is that after a six months or so of disruptions and point-proving the European Commission will make the implementing decision, which to be clear is NOT linked to the FTA discussion - at least not explicitly ;) /10

@BIBAbroker This issue will resonate politically in Northern Ireland where NI drivers who go frequently into Republic are being told they'll need a Green Card - even though there is still hope that deal or no deal, it can be sorted out with the Irish Govt /11

belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-n…

@BIBAbroker All this is just one illustration of expectations back in 2016 that European Commission would sign a quick and easy trade deal out of mutual self-interest totally underestimated, and misunderstood, what it means to be a 'third country', outside the EU /12

@BIBAbroker You didn't have blue and gold stars in yours eyes to be sceptical about voting for #Brexit - merely to appreciate how, in ways large and small, the EU leverages its size to get what it wants. Not always pretty, but it is what it is. /13

@BIBAbroker And this week or early next we will see to what extent UK decision-makers are prepared to bend in recognition that while both parties might be equally 'sovereign', they are not equal in size. It really is crunch time.

ENDS