First comes the Brexit trade deal. Now comes the red tape and the institutional nitty-gritty.
Four days after the free trade agreement with the European Union was concluded, the British government warned businesses to be ready for disruptions and ‘bumpy moments’ when the new rules come into force on Thursday night.
Businesses struggled on Monday to digest the details and implications of the 1,240-page agreement reached by the EU and the UK on Christmas Eve.
. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks at a media conference in Downing Street in London on December 24 (AP)
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The EU ambassadors, meanwhile, gave their unanimous approval of the Brexit trade agreement with the United Kingdom, Germany, which holds the EU presidency, and said the decision came during a meeting to review the Christmas Eve agreement.
“Green light,” Germany spokesman Sebastian Fischer said.
The approval has been expected since all EU leaders warmly welcomed it. It has yet to be approved by the EU legislature, which is expected to come in February. The British House of Assembly is expected to approve it on Wednesday.
The UK left the EU almost a year ago, but remained within the bloc’s economic embrace during a transition period ending on 31 December at midnight Brussels time – 23:00 in London.
The agreement, hammered out after nine months of tense negotiations, will ensure Britain and the 27-nation bloc can continue to trade goods without tariffs or quotas. This will help protect the annual trade between the two parties and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on it.
A colleague wears a Christmas hat as Michel Barnier, chief negotiator of the European Union, a binder of the Brexit trade agreement during a special meeting of Coreper in the European Council building in Brussels, on 25 December. (AP)
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But the end of Britain’s membership of the EU’s large internal market and customs union will continue to bring inconvenience and new spending to individuals and businesses – from tourists’ travel insurance to the millions of new customs declarations companies have to fill out.
“Businesses will have to make sure they are ready for new customs procedures, and we as individuals will have to make sure that our passports are up to date, because they must have at least six months before it expires to enable them to go abroad. to travel, ”said Michael Gove, the British cabinet minister in charge of preparing for Brexit.
“I’m sure there will be bumpy moments, but we are there to try our best to level the playing field,” he told the BBC.
The Conservative government of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson argues that any disruption of Brexit will be worthwhile in the short term as the UK will now be free to set its own rules and close new trade deals around the world.
Nevertheless, an ominous preview of what could happen if trade between the UK and the EU faces severe restrictions, when this month it briefly closed its border with Britain due to a new transmission of the coronavirus caused by London and southern England were transferred. Thousands of trucks were stuck in traffic jams for days or parked at an unused airport near the English Channel harbor and supermarkets warned that some goods, including fresh produce, would soon be short-lived.
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Even after France conceded and agreed to allow lorries tested negative for the virus, the backlog of 15,000 drivers now in need of tests took days to clear up.
Hard pro-Brexit lawmakers in Johnson’s Conservative party are worried about the deal to see if it takes their goal of a definite break out of the bloc. The main opposition Labor Party says the deal will hurt Britain’s economy, but it will support it anyway, as it is better than a chaotic split on 1 January.
Despite the agreement, uncertainty hangs over large chunks of the relationship between Britain and the EU. The deal covers trade in goods, but leaves the UK financial sector in the lurch, still unsure how easily it can do business with the bloc after 1 January. The British territory of Gibraltar, which has thousands of workers crossing from Spain daily, is also in limbo because it was not included in the deal.
And the Brexit agreement has angered one of the sectors that the government is emphasizing that it would protect: fishing. The economically small but extremely symbolic issue of fishing rights was a fixed point in negotiations, with maritime EU countries seeking access to British waters, and Britain insisting that they control the sea.
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Under the agreement, the EU will give up a quarter of the quota it catches in British waters, far less than the 80% that Britain initially demanded. The system will be phased in for more than 5 1/2 years, after which the quotas will be reconsidered.
“I am angry, disappointed and betrayed,” said Andrew Locker, chairman of the British Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations. “Boris Johnson has promised us the rights to all the fish that swim in our exclusive economic zone, and we have a fraction of that.”