The UK’s negotiation of a Free Trade Agreement with the EU will necessarily involve defining rules of origin, and before long negotiations with countries such as the US, Japan, and Australia will face the same task. In this Briefing Paper, the authors outline what rules of origin are, why they are needed, why they are complex, and which sectors in the UK may be most vulnerable to more restrictive rules of origin. They also discuss why the EU is highly unlikely to agree to the UK’s proposal on cumulation in rules of origin and argue that the obvious solution to this is for the UK to agree to the EU’s Pan Euro-Mediterranean Rules of Origin (PEM) which are the basis of the EU’s cumulation arrangements with a wide range of its neighbours. Any other outcome is likely to reduce the UK’s take up of trade preferences in its FTA with the EU.

Read Briefing Paper 45: WE’RE GOING TO MAKE THEM AN OFFER THEY CAN REFUSE: RULES OF ORIGIN AND THE UK-EU FREE TRADE AGREEMENT