Some of the practicalities were to be solved by the Joint Committee.
Here again - a patch-up job at best while it was becoming increasingly clear that the two sides have a different vision of how it should work
/2
The UK's Command Paper was a clear sign that the UK's view on its obligations differed from that of the EU.
Were these differences addressed at the time? No, of course not.
/3
Continous refusal to address the problem or to admit that there is still a long way to go before we have a stable, workable solution is making what was already a challenging situation - worse.
/4
Plus, on top of the actual technical difficulties, you have politics and various stakeholders using the Protocol as part of their own narrative.
/5
It's frustrating cause it was so predictable.
It's frustrating cause it was so mishandled.
It's frustrating cause if there is one area where a workable solution depends on goodwill, compromise and trust - it's this.
/6
There are no shortcuts here cause there are no off the shelf solutions to the problem.
So I look forward to the day when we start thinking about an actual compromise and accepting the consequences of all our previous decisions.
7/7
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So I have a feeling many companies are in for a rude awakening this month - the first round of supplementary customs declarations for companies importing from the EU
/1
Thanks to the UK Gov's easements there was an option to defer customs declarations for the first 6 months and submit the bare minimum of data at the time of import (usually done by the carrier, logistics provider)
/2
This was to be followed by a full, supplementary declaration up to 175 days later.
While I have often said that I don't believe the pandemic will significantly shift supply chains (which are formed as a response to costs, availability, taxes and a number of other factors) I was thinking it's likely to impact the approach to inventory management.
/2
The authors are equally sceptical about "supply chain resilience" but go even further when it comes to assessing the likelihood of impact on the type of inventory management - expanding storage space and increasing your inventory costs money.
While this focuses on the WTO, obviously parallels can be drawn between the WTO transparency debate, the wider transparency in trade debate and the recent discussions around the UK's trade strategy (FTA talks).
/2
I think when it comes to transparency in trade a question that's more important than "should we?" is "how to?".
But I also remember where we were in the Brexit debate around the same time and I think the potential impact, scope and trade-offs related to FTAs might not have been fully understood.
/2
To be fair, I recently had an opportunity to ask a few companies about their interest in and "wish list" for these FTAs (not a representative sample) and the interest and level of engagement was really low.
/3
We talked about overlapping agreements - bilaterals vs the CPTPP. @Liam_Sm_Y_th made a good point - that it's the traders that bring these agreements to life.
So...
/2
Combining these two points - with the overlapping trade agreements it's going to be even more crucial to provide UK companies with a good source of reliable information on market access conditions and requirements under all existing deals.
/3