UK economy

Non-regression on environmental protection: Making sense of the REUL Bill

16 June 2023 Chloe Anthony, Doctoral Researcher at University of Sussex Law School and Legal Researcher for the UK Environmental Law Association’s Governance and Devolution Group. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is part of the Government’s ‘Brexit opportunities’ agenda. It is currently in its final stages in Parliament, going back and forth between the Houses, in a debate on the inclusion of clauses that aim to safeguard parliamentary scrutiny and prevent the lowering of environmental protections. It returns to the Commons on 20 June. […]

By Nick Phipps|2023-06-16T11:37:10+01:0016 June 2023|UK- EU|1 Comment

Driving round the bend: Rules of origin and cars

8 June 2023 Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. Peter Holmes is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Emeritus Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. Manuel Tong Koecklin is a Research Fellow in the Economics of Trade at the UK Trade Policy Observatory and University of Sussex Business School. Recently, there have been a series of reports in the media focussing on the challenges that electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers are likely to face, from the end of this year, in exporting electric vehicles tariff-free to the EU. The concern it because of the changes in the rules of origin (ROOs) requirements (for EVs and batteries) which will become more difficult from January 2024, and again from 2027 and 2028 onwards. […]

By Nick Phipps|2023-06-08T15:07:33+01:008 June 2023|UK- EU|1 Comment

Rules of origin do matter after all!

19 May 2023 Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. Nicolo Tamberi is Research Officer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Fellow of UKTPO. Earlier this week Vauxhall announced it may withdraw from producing electric vehicles in the UK owing to difficulties from meeting ‘rules of origin’ on EU exports. The car manufacturer called for a revision to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) between the EU and then UK, notably regarding rules of origin (ROOs). Ford and Jaguar Land-Rover have also warned of the difficulties and called for a revision to the TCA and German producers have also expressed concerns about the meeting these ROOs. […]

By Nick Phipps|2023-05-19T13:40:16+01:0019 May 2023|UK- EU|1 Comment

Joining CPTPP – The UK’s big dive into the Indo-Pacific

31 March 2023 Minako Morita-Jaeger is Policy Research Fellow at the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Senior Research Fellow in International Trade in the Department of Economics, University of Sussex On 31st March, the UK announced an agreement in principle to become a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Politically, this is a positive step, especially as the Prime Minister can sell accession as a tangible achievement of the UK’s independent trade policy. But what is the real value of joining the CPTPP, and what are the key issues to examine? […]

By Nick Phipps|2023-03-31T09:31:10+01:0031 March 2023|UK - Non EU|3 Comments

The UK in a World of Green Industrial Strategies

13 March 2023 Emily Lydgate is Reader (Senior Associate Professor) in Environmental Law at University of Sussex School of Law, Politics and Sociology and Deputy Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory The UKTPO is pleased to re-publish this TaPP Network Workshop Summary, an output of a TaPP workshop in January with speakers Geraldo Vidigal (University of Amsterdam), Emily Lydgate (UKTPO/CITP), Ilaria Espa (USI/WTI), and Greg Messenger (TaPP/University of Bristol). Rather than a blog, this note summarises views of panel participants and the authors. It provides useful insights on the latest developments in this area and policy recommendations for the UK in navigating the new subsidies race between the US and the EU. […]

By Nick Phipps|2023-03-13T14:23:37+00:0013 March 2023|Uncategorised|0 Comments

Economic Sanctions: No End to War in Ukraine

24 February 2023 Erika Szyszczak is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Professor Emerita of Law at the University of Sussex. 24 February 2022: a date that shook the world as Russian aggression in Ukraine escalated. The fragility of a strategic democratic state was challenged, alongside exposing the vulnerability of interdependent global supply chains. Thus, it was not surprising that the early response to Russian aggression was in the form of economic sanctions led by the US, the UK and the EU. [1] […]

By Nick Phipps|2023-02-24T12:30:11+00:0024 February 2023|Uncategorised|1 Comment

Is it really true that Brexit has had no harmful effects?

17 February 2023 L. Alan Winters is Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy, Professor of Economics at University of Sussex Business School and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Given the recent discussions about future UK-EU relations and the review of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) after two years, I have started reading the Brexit literature again. A recent paper – ‘What impact is Brexit having on the UK economy?’ by Graham Gudgin, Julian Jessop and Harry Western (GJW) from October 2022 argues there is no hard evidence of harm and that studies that claim to find harm are biased and/or incompetent! In this blog, I consider a few of their points in four areas. […]

By Nick Phipps|2023-02-17T13:10:10+00:0017 February 2023|UK- EU|3 Comments

Two years since the TCA came into force: What has happened to UK-EU trade?

10 February 2023 Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. Nicolo Tamberi is Research Officer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Fellow of UKTPO. Today, HMRC have released UK trade data for 2022, which we can use to assess UK-EU trade two years after the introduction of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). […]

By Nick Phipps|2023-02-10T16:48:38+00:0010 February 2023|UK- EU|2 Comments

Northern Ireland trade patterns and the row over the Protocol

31 May 2022 Ruby Acquah and Mattia Di Ubaldo are Fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Research Fellows in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School Tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) have intensified as the UK Government (henceforth HMG) announced plans to introduce legislation that would enable it to disapply parts of the Protocol. The UK has often demanded the re-negotiation of the NIP due to its economic costs, and a too strict application by the EU. Recently, Assembly elections in Northern Ireland escalated the urgency of resolving the issue, as the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is currently refusing, as part of its protest against the NIP, to participate in the power-sharing executive. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-05-31T10:42:43+01:0031 May 2022|UK- EU|0 Comments

Russian MFN suspension: Implications for UK trade

11 March 2022 Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School President Biden announced today that the US, the EU, and the G7 countries (which includes the UK) will be suspending Russia’s Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status at the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this blog we look at what this actually means for the UK and what the potential trade implications are for the UK. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-03-11T17:59:04+00:0011 March 2022|UK - Non EU|2 Comments