Nick Phipps, Author at UKTPO

The UK must develop a cross-cutting strategy for trade and climate policy in order to become a world leader in both

3 March 2021 Dr Emily Lydgate is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law at the University of Sussex, and a Deputy Director of UKTPO. Chloe Anthony is a doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex. This blog was first published on LSE British Politics and Policy. Due to differences in underlying logic, there is much potential for trade and climate policy to conflict. Fundamentally, world trade rules and agreements aim to facilitate the free movement of goods and services, and restrict subsidies that distort trade. Climate policy, on the other hand, aims to support the low-carbon economy and restrict trade in high-carbon goods and services. The UK was the first country to put its climate target into law in 2008; it has met its first two interim targets for emissions reduction and is on course to meet the third in 2022. Yet analysis has shown that the first two emissions targets were met due to changes in accounting methods and the financial crisis, rather than due to effective policymaking. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-03-03T10:51:59+00:003 March 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

Two key things to know about Freeports

25 February 2021 Peter Holmes is a Fellow of the UKTPO. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex. The Government’s competition for proposals to create ten Freeports across the UK came to a close earlier this month with an announcement of the successful locations expected soon. Freeports are areas within a country that are outside its customs territory. Goods coming into the country via Freeports are exempt from paying tariffs until they enter the mainland or are shipped to another country. In the UK Freeports model[1] these areas may also be subject to special regulatory, tax, or subsidy rules. Such features may make the terms Enterprise Zone, Special Economic Zone or, the more general, Free Trade Zone more appropriate. The full details of all bids have not been published but summary reports indicate wide variety of business cases. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-02-25T09:56:44+00:0025 February 2021|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

Enhancement and Enforcement of International Trade Rules: The EU Leads the Way

18 February 2021 Erika Szyszczak is Professor Emerita and a Fellow of the UKTPO. Traditionally, the legal enforcement of obligations was the Achilles heel of bilateral and multilateral international agreements. The EU has signalled that it wants to conduct international trade based upon the rule of law. The demise of the WTO Appellate body since 11 December 2019 has focused the EU into using and bolstering its own Dispute Resolution mechanisms in international trade agreements. The significance of this approach is seen in the Trade and Co-operation Agreement between the EU and the UK 2020, containing innovative procedures for rebalancing the trade elements of the TCA (and ultimately cancelling them) if one side changes its standards in ways that materially affect trade. Such rebalancing can be triggered in several circumstances, including via periodic reviews of the whole trade relationship. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-02-18T14:59:48+00:0018 February 2021|UK- EU|0 Comments

The value of the CPTPP for the UK

3 February 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UKTPO. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade, and Nicolo Tamberi is Research Officer in Economics, both for the UKTPO. As widely anticipated and signalled in advance, the International Trade Secretary announced on Monday 1 February that the UK notified the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), of its intention to join. The CPTPP is a free trade agreement between 11 ‘Pacific’ countries which was signed in 2018.[1] This is an early step in the UK’s newfound and hard-won sovereign and independent trade policy. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-02-03T15:37:20+00:003 February 2021|UK - Non EU|10 Comments

Wasting time on the level playing field

17 December 2020 Alasdair Smith is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. If the UK leaves the EU transition period without a trade deal there will be disruption and delay at the borders in the short run; and in the longer run, there will be the economic costs of trade barriers for important parts of the UK economy like agriculture, food manufacturing and the car industry. There will be problems too for the EU. The biggest obstacle to a deal is the arcane issue of the ‘level playing field’. Does this really matter enough to both sides to prevent an agreement? […]

By Nick Phipps|2020-12-17T15:07:46+00:0017 December 2020|UK- EU|2 Comments

A quick recap on the costs of No Deal

15 December 2020 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Nicolo Tamberi is a Research Assistant in Economics for the UK Trade Policy Observatory. There has rightly been much talk recently about the disruption and economic damage that would result from a No Deal Brexit, and hence the economic importance of avoiding this outcome. This is on top of the economic havoc being wreaked by the Coronavirus pandemic. Despite this, we have seen the Prime Minister suggesting that No Deal would be a ‘good outcome’ for the UK and that the UK would prosper. How can this be squared? […]

By Nick Phipps|2020-12-15T14:10:58+00:0015 December 2020|UK- EU|2 Comments

Sustaining and Trading Fish in the North

4 December 2020 Professor Erika Szyszczak is Fellow of the UKTPO. The preoccupation in the final stages of the Brexit talks with an industry that contributes 0.12% to GDP and employs less than 0.1% of the UK workforce baffles commentators. Control over “our” fishing waters owes more to maintaining the British psyche rather than economic arguments. Amidst fears that the traditional UK fish and chip supper could be at risk without a fisheries deal with the EU, the UK has put in place a series of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with four Northern fishing nations; Greenland, Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. […]

By Nick Phipps|2020-12-04T10:37:39+00:004 December 2020|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|2 Comments

UK-EU trade relations: A checklist of 10 key issues

20 November 2020 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and Director of the UKTPO. Discussions and evaluations on the future UK-EU relationship have been on-going since the referendum of June 2016, and we are close to another milestone – by the end of the year, we will either have a free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU or no-deal. Note this is a milestone and not the endgame. Whether or not there is an agreement there will still be considerable practicalities to resolve, and no doubt some areas will be open to future negotiation. There is a lot of talk in the press about sticking points (fisheries, state aid and level playing field provisions, dispute settlement) but how good the deal is for the UK will depend on the scope and the depth of what is agreed, and whether some areas are only notionally covered and need to be sorted out in future negotiations. […]

By Nick Phipps|2020-11-20T17:31:49+00:0020 November 2020|UK- EU|2 Comments

The UK-Ukraine Political, Free Trade and Strategic Partnership Agreement

12 November 2020 Professor Erika Szyszczak is a Fellow of UKTPO In its avowed Global Britain Project the UK promised that Ukraine would be given preferential status in the post-Brexit trade landscape. Finally, on October 8, 2020 the UK and Ukraine signed a Political, Free Trade and Strategic Partnership Agreement (the Agreement). This is the first comprehensive strategic and trade agreement signed by the UK since the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, but one of several continuity agreements. The political symbolism of the Agreement is of greater significance than the economic impact of the Agreement, with Ukraine and the UK keen to show that they are independent, sovereign trading nations. […]

By Nick Phipps|2020-11-18T17:29:10+00:0018 November 2020|Uncategorised|2 Comments

It’s time to talk digital trade

13 November 2020 Guest blog by Emily Jones, Associate Professor in Public Policy, and Beatriz Kira, Senior Research and Policy Officer, both at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. The Government’s new approach to digital trade deserves close scrutiny. It has described the new digital provisions in the UK-Japan agreement as going “far beyond the EU’s” to make the deal “truly cutting-edge”. Digital trade is a priority in negotiations with the US too. Earlier this week a spokesperson said the UK and US have already agreed provisions on digital trade and data that are “forward-leaning” and argued that this would make a UK deal attractive to the new Biden administration. […]

By Nick Phipps|2020-11-13T16:25:09+00:0013 November 2020|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

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