Trade agreements

The irreconcilability of the UK Government’s objectives for Brexit

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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-03-02T11:38:29+00:002 March 2018|UK- EU|0 Comments

How will Brexit affect the UK’s manufacturing industry?

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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-02-06T13:14:12+00:006 February 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|14 Comments

It’s not what the rules are, it’s the way that you show it: proving ‘origin’ post-Brexit

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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-01-15T21:19:43+00:0015 January 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

With Brexit less than 500 days away, enshrining the Brexit date into law will not provide certainty that consumers and businesses really need.

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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-11-16T16:22:07+00:0016 November 2017|UK- EU|1 Comment

The impact of Brexit on cross-channel trade and the practical challenges facing the UK economy post-Brexit

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. [...]

By Nick Phipps|2017-10-26T17:01:35+01:0026 October 2017|UK- EU|1 Comment

Boeing – Bombardier and Brexit II

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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-10-17T14:53:45+01:0017 October 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|1 Comment

Grandfathering Free Trade Agreements and Rules of Origin: What might appear bilateral is in fact trilateral!

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] […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-09-27T09:47:33+01:0027 September 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|15 Comments

The EU Regulatory Magnet: What Are the Consequences for the UK?

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 [...]

By Nick Phipps|2017-09-01T17:07:42+01:001 September 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

The UK’s plan for post-Brexit customs is more hopeful than realistic

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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-08-16T12:25:23+01:0016 August 2017|UK- EU|2 Comments

What do the General Election Manifestos say about International Trade? UKIP

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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-05-26T16:12:22+01:0026 May 2017|UK- EU|0 Comments

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