Thread by @Life_Disrupted

This story has just been brought to my attention while discussing the UK's efforts to make trade deals. I wonder if they have now fixed the problem - they copied and pasted the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and accidentally signed up to EU rules.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

Amazingly I even gave a talk about the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement while at the Department for International Trade and drew attention to this issue, but I was not in a division that dealt with trade deals. Others brushed off my concerns anyway.

Any time I said something would be hard or complicated I was immediately shot down by one of the recent graduates, who said it would be fine. Is this a thing with graduates, they're told to be super confident and optimistic?

When I said it isn't ideal to draft something on Google Docs with lots of contributors constantly changing things, one said, "Get used to it!"

Anyway, I told them look at this EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, it's over 1,000 pages long and includes various EU-Ukraine committees to resolve disputes - how do we transfer that to the UK, and don't we need Ukraine's agreement on the changes?

It's actually 2,135 pages long. The majority of it is the tariffs on every product. trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/20…

For example: "The Trade and Sustainable Development Sub-Committee is hereby established. It shall report on its activities to the Association Committee in its configuration under Article 465(4) of this Agreement."

How do you roll that over?

"An Association Committee is hereby established. It shall assist the Association Council in the performance of its duties. This provision is without prejudice to the responsibilities of the various fora for the conduct of political dialogue as set out in Article 5."

"COMMITTED to a close and lasting relationship that is based on common values, namely respect for democratic principles...commitment to the principles of a free market economy, which would facilitate the participation of Ukraine in European
policies;"

"RECOGNISING that Ukraine as a European country shares a common history and common values with the Member States of the European Union (EU) and is committed to promoting those values;
NOTING the importance Ukraine attaches to its European identity;"

"ACKNOWLEDGING that the political association and economic integration of Ukraine with the European Union will depend on progress in the implementation of this Agreement as well as Ukraine's track record in ensuring respect for common values..."

"DESIROUS of achieving an ever-closer convergence of positions on bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest, taking into account the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union, including the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP);"

"RECOGNISING that such a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, linked to the broader process of legislative approximation, will contribute to further economic integration with the European Union Internal Market as envisaged in this Agreement;"

"The aims of this association are:
(a) to promote gradual rapprochement between the Parties based on common values and close and privileged links, and increasing Ukraine's association with EU policies and participation in programmes and agencies;"

Is Ukraine now striving for closer integration with the UK? Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelensky signed an agreement in October 2020, but no one seems to read these things.

To be fair they've got the UK-Ukraine agreement down to 575 pages. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

I wonder why, considering we were trying to get away from everything the EU did, it was so important to replicate all the EU's trade deals, without discussing what was in them.

Also, is it OK to change the text of an agreement after it's signed, without another signing? Apparently it is.

There's a memorandum to the agreement you can download that says the agreement can be amended via an exchange of notes.

The government has refused to allow parliament to scrutinise trade deals before they're signed, but other countries' parliaments will certainly do this.