06 December 2019

Bloomberg: EU’s new trade chief warns of persistent Brexit economic risks

The European Union’s trade chief signaled that post-Brexit Britain and the EU would struggle to reach a free-trade agreement before the end of 2020, highlighting the persistent risk of UK commercial ties with the bloc being severed in a disruptive way.

“We have no accurate way to predict how long it will take to negotiate a deal with the U.K. because there is no precedent,” Phil Hogan said in the text of remarks due to be delivered on Friday in Dublin. “We are entering completely uncharted waters.” [...]

Tricky Negotiations

“A number of British newspapers quoted me out of context to indicate that I believed a deal was achievable before the end of 2020,” Hogan said. “The most productive thing the U.K. government could do at this point is to focus on content, not timing.” [...]

Hogan said the EU and U.K. have the advantage of already enjoying barrier-free commerce. At the same, he said, little is known about Britain’s goals on post-Brexit ties to the bloc.

“We are absolutely not starting from scratch; we should be able to square off many areas of alignment relatively quickly, due to the high level of convergence already in place,” Hogan said. “We are still in the dark as to what type of free-trade agreement the U.K. will ultimately want. So the urgent priority for the next government must be to outline its preferences, and then carefully define its offensive and defensive interests for each stage of negotiations.” [...]

Full article on Bloomberg

© Bloomberg