14 November 2019

RTE: UK consumers will expect EU standards in FTA - Hogan

Ireland's EU commissioner Phil Hogan has said British consumers will expect the UK to sign up to the EU’s labour, environmental and food standards as part of a free trade agreement for which he will be chief negotiator next year.

Giving an upbeat prediction of how quickly the trade negotiations could be concluded, Mr Hogan, the EU Trade Commmissioner-designate, said the EU would be ready to go "before St Patrick’s Day" next year,.

However he said the UK would have to decide early on in the negotiations which EU rules they were prepared to sign up to.

Speaking to RTÉ News, Mr Hogan said: "The British public will demand and expect that their government will sign on to EU standards because we have the highest standards in the world."

In remarks which will be seen as an encouragement for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has said a free trade agreement could be negotiated before the end of next year, Mr Hogan said that because the UK had been part of the EU’s trading regime for 45 years then neither side was starting from scratch in the negotiations.

"We're not starting from zero so therefore I believe we can do - with a bit of good will on both sides - we can do an agreement more quickly than we would do with any other negotiations around the world which would take three or four years.

"The United Kingdom has been part of the European Union. They’ve been part of the trade framework for the past 45 years, so we’re not starting from scratch."

Speaking at an event held by the European Movement Ireland in Brussels, Mr Hogan told RTÉ News that the UK would have to decide which EU regulations the UK wanted to be part of, and which they would diverge from.

He said a key issue would be the kinds of standards that British consumers wanted to adhere to. 

 

"I would say a majority of the [EU] regulations that are there won't be a problem for the consumers or workers or people who are working in the environmental or agricultural [sphere] if they want to have the highest possible standards.

"I think that’s the key issue: standards." [...]

He added that the UK would have to sign up to so-called level playing field provisions, which the EU see as preventing a potentially low-regulation UK from undercutting the European economy.

But he believed things could move quickly.

"I would think there will be a significant amount of progress made because we will be ready to go in the springtime, the Council will have to give us a mandate. 

"All the details around that can be achieved very quickly. We can get into the negotiations before Patrick's if there is political good will on the part of the United Kingdom and we’re ready to go."

Mr Hogan qualified his remarks saying everything depended on the outcome of the British election next month.

"If there’s a majority government of course it makes a big difference," he said.

"If Mr Johnson is going to have a majority we’ll have a Withdrawal Agreement approved by mid-January and if there’s an alternative to Mr Johnson elected, led by Labour and the Lib Dems, we’ll probably have another referendum, so we wait with baited breath for the 12th of December.

"It’s a very big decision for the United Kingdom. There’s a lot of engagement in it and Brexit is the biggest issue in the campaign." [...]

Full article on RTE

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