Dr Michael Gasiorek is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Managing Director of InterAnalysis. He is a Fellow of the UKTPO.
In good part, the answer depends on the extent to which this agreement moves on from the Government’s previous position, is feasible, is credible, and is acceptable to the EU. It also depends on whether it will be acceptable to the Conservative party, which the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson throw into serious doubt.
In this blog, I focus on one aspect of this – the extent to which the “facilitated customs arrangement” (FCA), which is central to the agreement notionally reached at Chequers, is substantively different from the previous idea of a “New Customs Partnership” (NCP). (more…)
Charlotte Humma July 10th, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Chequers Agreement, Customs Union, Free Trade Agreement, Northern Ireland, Rules of Origin, Single Market, tariffs
L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the Observatory.
The (three page) Chequers Statement is a remarkable political sticking plaster. Coupled with some robust politics it appeared to have kept the Cabinet unified for a few more days, although now even that goal has been missed.
This note is not about the politics, but about the technical aspects of the Statement which is replete with ambiguities and wishful thinking (or worse). The White Paper, if it arrives on time, may resolve some of these ambiguities, but that is far from clear, given the political imperatives that Mrs May feels must guide her actions. (more…)
Charlotte Humma July 9th, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Brexit dividend, Chequers Statement, Common Rulebook, Customs, Facilitated Customs Arrangement, Free Trade Agreement, FTA
Dr. Minako Morita-Jaeger is is an international trade policy consultant and a Visiting Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory
Exactly a year ago today, the EU and Japan agreed the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in principle. Subsequently, at the end of August that year, the UK Prime Minister Theresa May and the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to work quickly to establish a new bilateral economic partnership based on the final terms of the EU-Japan EPA when the UK exits the EU. The UK Government currently wishes to roll over existing EU trade agreements, including the EU-Japan EPA. But does rolling over make sense? From the UK point of view, it is obvious that rolling over the Agreement reflects neither Brexit campaigners’ promise of building a ‘Global Britain’ nor UK sovereignty of its own trade policy. From the Japanese perspective, rolling over the EU-Japan EPA does not make sense either because a symbolic arrangement cannot reflect economic realities. (more…)
Charlotte Humma July 6th, 2018
Posted In: UK - Non EU
Tags: Economic Partnership Agreement, Free Trade Agreement, FTA, Japan, Negotiations, Services, Single Market
L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the Observatory.
Two years in and the Cabinet is still squabbling over the UK’s trade relationship with Europe. Among the options most discussed, if not most likely to occur, are
This blog does not assess the relative merits of these arrangements, but notes that they share a common flaw: they ignore 80 percent of the British economy! The more successful 80 percent, in fact – the services sectors, in which the UK has a manifest comparative advantage (see below). The advocates of these plans gloss over this difficulty by claiming that the UK can negotiate services trade agreements both with the EU and with other countries. But this is easier said than done. (more…)
Charlotte Humma July 6th, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Customs Union, Free Trade Agreement, Services, Single Market, White Paper
Alasdair Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Economics and Dr Peter Holmes is Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex. They are both Fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory.
On June 7, after prolonged internal discussion, the UK government published its paper proposing the extension to the whole UK of the ‘backstop’ provision in the EU draft withdrawal agreement to incorporate Northern Ireland (NI) into the EU’s customs territory until another solution can be found for the problem of the Irish border. The UK is unenthusiastic about the backstop and hopes it will not be needed, but wants any backstop to cover the whole UK, so as to avoid the need for border inspections of trade between NI and the rest of the UK (GB). Perhaps surprisingly, the government paper does not address the fact that the EU’s proposal is for NI to be included in a ‘common regulatory area’ as well as in a de facto customs union: any backstop needs to deal with regulation as well as customs. (more…)
Charlotte Humma June 11th, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: common regulatory area, Customs, Irish border, Northern Ireland, regulation, Uk-wide backstop, withdrawal agreement
L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the Observatory.
President Trump threatened them two months ago and invited various countries to avoid them by agreeing ‘voluntarily’ to curtail their exports to the USA. Korea, Argentina, Australia and Brazil agreed to do so but, to their credit, Canada, the European Union and Mexico did not, and so face 25 percent tariffs from today. (more…)
Charlotte Humma June 1st, 2018
Posted In: UK - Non EU
Tags: tariffs, trade wars, USA, world trading system, WTO
24 May 2018
Professor Erika Szyszczak is a Professor of Law at the University of Sussex and is a member of the UK Trade Policy Observatory.
If, and when the UK is able to agree a new trade relationship with the EU it will be negotiating within a new EU approach to conducting trade agreements. This will have consequences for the type of agreement(s) the UK is able to negotiate with the EU, as well as the replication of any trade agreements negotiated by the EU and the rest of the world before the full Brexit process is finalised. (more…)
Charlotte Humma May 24th, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Brexit, Free Trade Agreement, FTA, ISDS, Negotiations, Trade agreements
Alasdair Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and is a member of the UK Trade Policy Observatory.
Not before time, the UK government is giving attention to the ‘backstop’ provision which will be written into the Withdrawal Agreement for Brexit to avoid a hard border in Ireland. But rather than focussing on how to sell this politically in the UK, the government needs to address the more pressing question of whether the European Union (EU) will agree to the UK’s preferred version of the backstop. (more…)
Charlotte Humma May 22nd, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Customs Union, Europe Union, freedom of movement, Goods only single market, Irish border, Northern Ireland, regulatory alignment, Uk-wide backstop, withdrawal agreement
Julia Magntorn is Research Officer in Economics at the UKTPO.
While Theresa May and her cabinet are trying to agree on whether to back the maximum facilitation proposal or the customs partnership, another option, nicknamed the ‘Norway option’ which would see the UK remaining a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), has made a comeback in the Brexit debate. (more…)
Charlotte Humma May 18th, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Customs Union, EEA, Financial Services, freedom of movement, Irish border, Single Market, Trade agreements
Dr Michael Gasiorek is Senior Lecturer in Economics and Dr Peter Holmes is Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex. They are both Fellows of the UKTPO and Managing Director and Director of InterAnalysis respectively.
The government’s two preferred options for post-Brexit trade with the EU are “Maximum Facilitation” whereby technological solutions are used to simplify trade procedures, and a so-called “New Customs Partnership”.
This blog discusses the implications of the New Customs Partnership (NCP) scheme. It must be borne in mind that the EU has so far rejected both and that in fact the degree of detail currently provided by the Government on either is so slight that we cannot be sure what is proposed. It is also arguable that they are not alternatives since under any scenario the government is keen to ensure the maximum simplification of procedures in order for trade to be ‘as frictionless as possible’. Even if they were viable, both the NCP and the Max Fac proposals involve significant trade-offs – namely that they involve firms in expensive set-up costs in order to be able to reduce transactions costs. (more…)
Charlotte Humma May 17th, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Customs Union, Free Trade Agreement, Irish border, New Customs Partnership, Rules of Origin, Single Market, tariffs