2 March 2018
Dr Michael Gasiorek is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Director and Managing Director of InterAnalysis respectively. He is a Fellow of the UKTPO.
There is much talk about the UK not being able to “cherry-pick” and “have its cake and eat it” with regards to post-Brexit trade policy with the EU. There are a couple of issues here. First, all EU agreements are different and hence by definition bespoke. Cherries are picked by both sides. This will also be true of a future UK-EU agreement. The question, therefore, really is to do with the extent to which the EU will grant the UK a bespoke deal in serious and substantive ways. The second issue is that it is far from clear that the UK government currently knows what all the ingredients are and what the recipe is for the cake it is hoping to share with the EU. (more…)
Charlotte Humma March 2nd, 2018
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: conformity assessment, Customs Union, Irish border, Regulations, Single Market, tariffs, Trade agreements, trade policy
6 February 2018
Alasdair Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex, Dr Michael Gasiorek is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Director and Managing Director of InterAnalysis, Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the Economics of Brexit. All are Fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO).
How would different versions of Brexit affect the UK economy? Are some parts of the economy likely to be affected more than others? Will trade deals with the rest of the world make up for any loss of UK access to EU markets? These are highly topical questions this week as the UK Cabinet’s Brexit committee makes important decisions about its objectives in the next stage of the Brexit negotiations.
They are the questions we seek to address in our new Briefing Paper ‘Which Manufacturing Sectors are Most Vulnerable to Brexit?’, published today. As it says on the tin, we answer them only for the manufacturing sectors; and in doing so we take a very disaggregated approach to UK manufacturing. (more…)
Charlotte Humma February 6th, 2018
Posted In: UK - Non EU, UK- EU
Tags: Brexit, FTA, Grandfathering, manufacturing, Rules of Origin, Trade agreements
16 January 2018
Dr Peter Holmes Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. Nick Jacob is a PhD Candidate in Economics at the University of Sussex.
The need for UK firms to comply with detailed Rules of Origin in a possible post-Brexit Free Trade Agreement with the EU has been widely reported. But the different procedures which firms could use to prove their compliance — and the costs to firms in time and money — have been mostly overlooked. (more…)
Charlotte Humma January 15th, 2018
Posted In: UK - Non EU, UK- EU
Tags: Brexit, Certificates of Origin, FTA, Rules of Origin, tariffs, Trade agreements
16 November 207
Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the Economics of Brexit at the UKTPO.
The European Chief Negotiator for Brexit, Michel Barnier, has recently confirmed that the UK will cease to be a member of the EU at midnight (Brussels time) on 29 March 2019. This means that we are now less than 500 days and under 350 working days away from the Brexit date. More time has already passed since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016. (more…)
Charlotte Humma November 16th, 2017
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Article 50, Brexit, FTA, Trade agreements, Withdrawal Bill, WTO
26 October 2017
Nicolo Tamberi is Research Assistant for the UKTPO and Charlotte Humma is the UKTPO’s business manager.
Leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union will require the implementation of new border controls between the UK and the EU that will surely increase transport time and therefore costs. However minimal they may be, these new procedures will negatively affect trade between the two parties.
According to a study by EY, Economic footprint of the Channel Tunnel fixed link, trade between Folkestone and Calais via the Eurotunnel was estimated to be £91.4 billion or 24.8% of trade with the EU in 2014. Goods transported through the Channel Tunnel are exported from and imported to every region of the UK.
Today, transporting things from one shore to the other requires minimal controls such as those that exist between Surrey and Somerset. Businesses on both sides of the channel increase their efficiency by integrating their supply chains and by relying on the prompt connection across the channel. So, what about Brexit? If one thing is clear in the impenetrable mist surrounding the future UK-EU relations, it is that exiting the Single Market and the Customs Union will require increased border controls. (more…)
Tina Perrett October 26th, 2017
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Brexit, Customs Union, Ernst & Young, Eurotunnel, Exports, food, FTA, Imports, logistics, manufacturing, Single Market, Trade agreements
17 October 2017
Steve McGuire is Professor of Business and Public Policy and Head of the School of Business, Management and Economics at the University of Sussex. He is a Fellow of the UKTPO.
Bombardier has found an elegant solution to its trade problems with the United States: sell a controlling stake in the programme to a company with deeper pockets to defend itself – and with a US production base immune, by definition, from US tariffs. (more…)
Charlotte Humma October 17th, 2017
Posted In: UK - Non EU, UK- EU
Tags: aerospace, Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, tariffs, trade, Trade agreements, trade dispute
27 September 2017
Dr Peter Holmes Reader in Economics and Dr Michael Gasiorek is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Director and Managing Director of InterAnalysis respectively. Both are Fellows of the UKTPO.
With respect to the post-Brexit period, the UK needs to sort out its trade relationships not just with the EU but also with non-EU countries. In regard to the EU, Mrs May’s stated objective is for an “implementation” period during which “access to one another’s markets should continue on current terms”, such that “businesses and public services should only have to plan for one set of changes in the relationship between the UK and the EU”. However, for this to be possible, the UK will also have to deal with the relationship with non-EU countries. In this blog, we focus on an important aspect of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) which centres around something which is a bit technical and often not well understood – called “Rules of Origin” (RoOs).[1] (more…)
Charlotte Humma September 27th, 2017
Posted In: UK - Non EU, UK- EU
Tags: Exports, Grandfathering, Rules of Origin, tariffs, trade, Trade agreements
1st September 2017
Erika Szyszczak is a Professor of Law at the University of Sussex, independent ADR Mediator and a Fellow of the UKTPO.
This week it was reported that the PM, Theresa May intends to “cut and paste” existing EU trade deals when forging a new trade policy for the UK.
Today the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA) officially came into force, although most of the provisions of the AA have been provisionally applied since 1 September 2014, with the trade provisions contained in the novel Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), provisionally applied since 1 January 2016. The AA is a new model of external relations for the EU and it addresses matters beyond trade (cooperation in foreign and security policy, justice, freedom and security (including migration) taxation, public finance management, science and technology, education and information society). It is an innovative form of external action in offering a new type of economic integration without membership of the EU: an integration-oriented agreement. The new AA may reveal some lessons for the UK as it seeks new models of trade relationships. Indeed, the AA has already entered the consciousness of the wider public as a potential model for UK-EU trade agreements post-Brexit, but, in fact, it is a most unlikely model given that the UK does not want such a deep commitment beyond trade provisions with the EU. (more…)
Charlotte Humma September 1st, 2017
Posted In: UK - Non EU, UK- EU
Tags: Association Agreement, Single Market, Trade agreements
16 August 2017
Dr Peter Holmes Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO
The UK government has just issued its official position paper on the issue of the customs union and Brexit. It emphasises a desire for the “most frictionless trade possible in goods between the UK and the EU” and proposes two ways of achieving this in the long term, while making it clear that the UK will leave the EU’s customs union when it leaves the EU.
The first option it proposes is a “streamlined customs arrangement” which sounds like a form of free trade agreement (but there is no mention of this as an aim). It involves keeping in place a number of the existing customs arrangements and using (untested) electronic technology to ensure the smooth processing of all documentation. The stated aim is to keep border arrangements as close as possible to what they are now to maintain continuity for businesses. (more…)
Tina Perrett August 16th, 2017
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Brexit, Customs Union, Exports, Negotiations, politics, tariffs, Trade agreements
26 May 2017
Compiled by Fellows of the UKTPO
Brexit will leave many areas of UK policy open to change. International trade policy is among the most important of these for UK prosperity and also among the most immediate because the status quo cannot simply be extended. This is the fifth in a series of blogs reporting what the major political parties say about trade policy in their 2017 manifestos, as they become available.
The UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) has set out a series of issues that it believes should be considered in any election manifesto that might form the basis of the UK’s future trade policy. The table below checks whether or not the UKIP Manifesto mentions these important elements explicitly or implicitly. Following that we offer a brief commentary on the treatment of trade policy in the manifesto. (more…)
Tina Perrett May 26th, 2017
Posted In: UK- EU
Tags: Brexit, Customs Union, Exports, FTA, General Election 2017, trade, Trade agreements, UKIP
