Nick Phipps, Author at UKTPO

Would Canada-plus do the trick?

26 September 2018 L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Nicolo Tamberi is a Research Assistant in Economics for the Observatory The brusque dismissal of elements of Mrs May’s Chequers plan at the informal meeting in Salzburg last week has stimulated feverish attempts to revive the case for a deep and special UK-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), under the title of a CETA-plus agreement. This effort received substantial reinforcement from the Institute for Economic Affairs’ paper of 24 September 2018. None of the discussion, however, has dealt seriously with the fact that an FTA will require the introduction of border formalities on UK-EU trade and that these will both violate the commitment to the absence of a border in Ireland and create serious congestion at those ports dealing with UK-EU flows, which will increase trading costs and cut trade with the EU. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-09-26T08:46:14+01:0026 September 2018|UK- EU|4 Comments

Does the ‘Facilitated Customs Arrangement’ comply with WTO rules?

19 September 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. In its Chequers White Paper, the UK government has proposed that, in order to facilitate a frictionless border, it will operate a dual customs regime known as a Facilitated Customs Arrangement (‘FCA’). By replacing rules of origin checks at the EU-UK border with internal monitoring, the FCA requires firms to establish ‘robustly’ the destination of their products to ensure that correct duties have been applied, and then, if they wish, to seek rebates if they have been overcharged. Past UKTPO blogs have addressed logistical challenges and strategic downsides of this ‘Fantastically Complicated Alternative’ (see also Does the Chequers Agreement provide any steps to Brexit heaven?) But would it be compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization? The precise details of the FCA’s operation remain unclear. Barring a dispute, it’s not possible to settle the question definitively, but the FCA does prima facie pose a risk of WTO non-compliance. We presume that the UK government has undertaken some analysis of this, and that it covers (at least) the following issues. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-09-19T16:15:50+01:0019 September 2018|UK- EU|1 Comment

Trading on ‘WTO Rules’ is NOT the best option: the treachery of growth rates

7 August 2018 Nicolo Tamberi is a Research Officer in Economics for the UK Trade Policy Observatory. In a recent post on Brexit Central , Michael Burrage examines the growth of different countries’ exports to the EU12 over 1993-2015 and asks: ‘How can trading with the EU under WTO rules be the worst possible option when the exports to the EU of 15 countries which have been doing just that over 23 years of the Single Market have grown four times as much as those of the UK, despite all the tariff and non-tariff barriers they have faced?’ The answer is ‘easily’! […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-08-07T16:21:06+01:007 August 2018|UK- EU|4 Comments

“Mamma Mia – here we go again” Equivalence for goods regulation in the Chequers proposal

3 August 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law, Dr Peter Holmes is a reader in Economics and Dr Michael Gasiorek is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex. They are all fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. In describing the future regulatory relationship between the EU and UK, the recent UK White Paper proposes the notion of ‘equivalence’ in some areas. This may seem like a mere technical requirement, but equivalence is a loaded word in trade policy circles, and the UK government’s reliance on it bears further scrutiny. With respect to goods, ‘equivalence’ shows up in two main ways. First, the UK states that it will maintain equivalence (rather than exact harmonisation with EU regulation) for some food policy rules in the context of a […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-08-03T13:25:04+01:003 August 2018|UK- EU|6 Comments

Tilting the playing field? The asymmetry in the UK and EU’s regulatory ‘ask’

27 July 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The July UK White Paper on the future relationship with the EU calls for a ‘common rule-book’ for goods. This has sometimes been shorthanded as a proposal for a Single Market for goods (in contrast to services, which departs more dramatically from the status quo).[1] But the scope of regulation the UK proposes should fall within this ‘common rulebook’ is narrower than what would be covered in a Single Market for goods – as the EEA Agreement demonstrates. It’s narrower even than that covered by the EU-Ukraine DCFTA Agreement. So what does the common rule-book cover – and how might this match up with the EU’s regulatory ‘ask’ of the UK? […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-07-27T14:54:22+01:0027 July 2018|UK- EU|1 Comment

Decoding the Facilitated Customs Arrangement

23 July 2018 L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the Observatory and Julia Magntorn is Research Officer in Economics at the UKTPO. There is much to digest in the White Paper on The future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union and much to clarify. This blog is devoted entirely to trying to understand the Facilitated Customs Arrangement (FCA) that aims to deliver frictionless trade in goods between the UK and the EU after Brexit. The FCA matters because trade that is ‘as frictionless as possible’ with the EU is now accepted by nearly everyone as desirable and has been characterised by much of business as essential. It also matters in the short term, however, because it is the UK government’s offer to the EU on how to ensure that there is no border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Without a solution to this latter problem there will be no Withdrawal Agreement and no transition. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-07-23T11:44:46+01:0023 July 2018|UK - Non EU|6 Comments

Regulatory barriers likely to be contentious and most significant obstacles to UK-US trade

12 July 2018 Rorden Wilkinson is Professor of Global Political Economy and Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sussex and a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Charlotte Humma is Research Communications Manager at the Business School and Business Manager at the Observatory. Standards and technical regulations are likely to be the most significant—and potentially contentious—obstacles to a UK-US trade deal according to leading trade experts. Published today our latest briefing paper states that the UK faces a challenge in whether it stays with EU regulation, moves towards the US approach or tries a pick-and-mix approach of its own. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-07-12T13:34:00+01:0012 July 2018|UK - Non EU|0 Comments

Does the Chequers Agreement provide any steps to Brexit heaven?

9 July 2018 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). […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-07-10T09:59:42+01:0010 July 2018|UK- EU|0 Comments

Weasel words in the Chequers Statement

9 July 2018 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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-07-09T14:18:39+01:009 July 2018|UK- EU|4 Comments

New economic partnership between the UK and Japan – Does rolling over the EU-Japan EPA make sense?

06 July 2018 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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-07-06T13:47:46+01:006 July 2018|UK - Non EU|5 Comments

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