I should point out: they give advice in the regulatory environment as it is. If you are outside the single market and the customs union but want to serve many clients inside it, setting up a distribution centre makes sense...
(And as @JornTychsen rightly points out: EU business who used to send a lot of B2C from the EU might consider doing the same).
Finally: yes, it means moving jobs from the UK elsewhere. But better to do that and safeguard the profits the company makes thereby preserving its business overall than losing the profits and possibly the whole business.
(And also: civil servants giving advise that helps at the risk of creating newspaper headlines embarrassing the government are GREAT)
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What a fascinating detail that the keen eye of @RaoulRuparel has dug up. But a caveat applies (yeah, lawyers): as the provision stands it is an interesting precedent, but arguably not enough to resolve the situation. Why?
From a glance at the treaty provisions the cumulation rules seem similar. So what does the guidance refer to? Footnote 3 of Annex 2. Which reads ""Canada/EU" means products qualifying as originating under the rules of origin of the" CETA. (leaving out sentence 2)
So the legal rule here seems to merely relate to putting "Canada/EU" into the form. What then does the guidance do?
And divergence is in the news again. And Peter gets the order exactly right: before we even get to rebalancing, we should have a discussion: do we actually WANT the different rules and here a fundamental problem kicks in (thread)
The EU debate has been messed up for a long time, because too often public debate became "the EU forces us to do X, how dare they". And the nuance was gone. What nuance?
The nuance that on the EU level much like on the national level some people push left, some people push right, some yell "vegan bonanza" others "beef boom" and in the end you get to an outcome, quite often with a significant UK impact.
What's happening is not unexpected. And there are a number of causes: 1) non-tariff barriers as a consequence of moving from CU+SM to FTA 2) teething problems made worse because 3) no prep time for an FTA announced last second.
Over time, a new normal will settle in with higher transport costs, more red tape and less trade.
Many excellent contributions on the future of EU-UK relations by @SamuelMarcLowe , @fromTGA , @DavidHenigUK . Maybe the debate could be summarised as follows (short thread)
For a while UK politics will inevitably be looking for regulatory divergence with the EU. After that there are two scenarios: either the debate continues to focus on divergence at all cost - without regard to the regulatory content. In that case the TCA will fail.
Or we enter calmer waters, regulation is debated on its merits, divergence will happen here and there, but the obsession with being different fades away. In that case, a partnership can built. That partnership can go further than the TCA also on trade...