EU Referendum


Brexit: coming to a head


08/06/2021




It seems there is more at stake in this week's meeting between Maroš Šefcovic (pictured) and the recently ennobled David Frost than I indicated in Sunday's piece.

That is according to no less than Maroš Šefcovic himself, who has been writing for the Telegraph, under the somewhat revealing heading: "The EU will not be shy in reacting swiftly, firmly and resolutely".

Å efcovic is not messing about, or perhaps he is and wants us to believe that he isn't. Either way, he tells us that, as he travels to London on Tuesday, it is clear that this week will be a defining one for consolidating trust between the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Together with Lord Frost, he writes, we will launch the work of the Joint Partnership Council on the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement – beneficial for all our citizens and businesses, while establishing a level playing field and effective governance to enforce it.

Alongside the Joint Committee on the TCA, they will also chair the Joint Committee on the Withdrawal Agreement, and it is that which will address outstanding issues linked to the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

When he arrives, he says he will bring "three clear messages". Firstly, he tells us, he and his colleagues in the EU "have a strong commitment to the people of Northern Ireland to ensure that the peace, stability and prosperity that they have enjoyed over the last 20 years are maintained".

With the propaganda done, he then tells us that the protocol is the best solution to the unique situation of the island of Ireland following Brexit – and specifically to the challenges created by the type of Brexit that the current UK Government chose. The protocol, he says, is the only solution we found to protect the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement in all its parts.

He then makes the point that the agreement on the protocol marks the first time that the EU has entrusted the control of its economic border to an outside partner, a risk that we and our EU member states were willing to take in the interests of protecting stability in Northern Ireland. But, he says, in order to realise the benefits of the protocol, we [the EU and the UK] must make tangible progress on its implementation. That is his second message.

He and the entire EU team, he says, have been working hard to find ways to ensure that the protocol is implemented in a way that both facilitates the everyday life of Northern Ireland's communities and preserves the integrity of the EU's Single Market.

And, although it should hardly need saying, he reminds us that the EU cannot do this alone. It has to be a joint endeavour between the EU and the UK.

Denying Frost's charge that the EU is being inflexible, he claims that the EU "has shown from the very beginning that we are willing to find creative solutions when required". He gives as an example, the continued availability of medicines to Northern Ireland. That, he says, is among those tailor-made flexible solutions, something he personally takes very seriously in this time of pandemic.

Now he wants to see "that same commitment" to the protocol and perseverance with its implementation from the UK Government when we meet in London. Unfortunately, though, in his view, there are "numerous and fundamental gaps in the UK's implementation", even though the protocol entered into force over 17 months ago.

The "important stepping stone" for Å efcovic is "mutually agreed compliance paths, with concrete deadlines and milestones for the UK to fulfil its existing obligations". That would be a credible outcome of the joint committee.

And then comes the iron fist in the blue satin glove with yellow stars. "If this does not happen, and if the UK takes further unilateral action over the coming weeks, the EU will not be shy in reacting swiftly, firmly and resolutely to ensure that the UK abides by its international law obligations".

That brings Å efcovic to his third message, a view that, at its heart, the protocol represents an opportunity for Northern Ireland. It offers, he says, unparalleled access to two markets, representing more than 500 million consumers with strong purchasing power, and it can provide a powerful incentive to attract investment from overseas.

A touch of rhetoric completes the piece, but it cuts little ice with the Telegraph. Despite his noble intentions, this paper sees in his worlds the threat of a "sausage war". This brings the issues down to the lowest common denominator where Brussels is intent on start a trade war with Britain "if Boris Johnson overrides the Brexit treaty so that Northern Irish shops can keep selling British sausages".

The UK government, as we know, has already unilaterally extended grace periods – on supermarket goods and parcels – earlier this year and we are led to believe that ministers are now considering, as a last resort, another unilateral extension for chilled meats, including sausages and mince.

Although we are also told that this, "would enrage the EU", there appears little hope of agreeing a deal. The UK has rejected dynamic alignment with the EU's SPS rules, for want of which Frost is said to be pushing for a deal based on "equivalence", which the Telegraph equates to "mutual recognition of standards", and then tells us that this "would loosely mirror the agreement the EU has with New Zealand".

This is what passes for information from this newspaper, its writers apparently still unaware that "equivalence" and "mutual recognition" are different things and should not be confused. Furthermore, as I have written so many times, the New Zealand deal is, effectively, a one-off, which could never be on offer to the UK – and even then it would not solve the UK's problems.

The whole argument is academic anyway, as it has been ruled out by the Commission, which also dismisses UK arguments that following the EU rules would tie Britain's hands in trade negotiations with other countries. It has told British negotiators to agree to a temporary dynamic alignment deal instead.

Here, of course, Brussels is right. Taking New Zealand as an example, it manages to conform with the different regulatory requirements of its principal markets, and thus sells to Japanese, Chinese and EU customers. When it ships to Japan, it abides by Japanese rules, when product goes to China, it obeys Chinese rules, and when it exports to the EU, it works to rules approved by the commission.

Difficulties would arise – in a scenario which doesn't affect New Zealand – where the UK simultaneously imports products from different regulatory zones, and exports to the EU. Then, it would find that EU checks would probably be more stringent, to exclude the possibility of non-conforming produce seeping into the Single Market.

The trouble seems to be though that the UK government still hasn't got a grip on what is needed to trade successfully as an external supplier to the EU, especially if it is still talking about "mutual recognition". And it is also having difficulty understanding that a mixed import-export trade presents a different raft of problems, which are not experienced by major exporters such as New Zealand.

The limited grasp of the issues, displayed by Frost, probably reflect the extremely poor standard of advice he is getting internally, but the situation is not improved by the trade, which has frequently been behind the curve. And then there were the trade wonks, in high-octane pontification mode, on issues for which they have little if any practical experience.

For all the rhetoric, therefore, the protocol seems more likely to founder not so much because of the inherent disagreements, but on a wave of ignorance, where the British government is floundering around in a haze, without the first idea of what it is doing, or trying the achieve.

Also published on Turbulent Times.