uk

The British government underestimated the effects of the Northern Ireland Protocol, Brexit Minister David Frost admitted on Monday (May 17). He warned the British Parliament that talks with EU officials threatened to fail; there is hardly a way to break the deadlock in the dispute over the implementation of border controls.

At a hearing before the House of Commons European Committee, Frost admitted that the introduction of controls on goods in transit from the UK to the UK provinces “has more dissuasive effects on UK companies than they do to ship goods to Northern Ireland we thought.”

This is “one of the problems underlying the unrest and political developments that we see in Northern Ireland.”

With the Northern Ireland Protocol, the province remains in the EU’s internal market for goods, effectively creating a trade border with Great Britain. This has sparked angry reaction from the unionist and loyalist community in Northern Ireland, which is demanding that the province remain fully part of the UK.

More than 50 police officers were injured during the riot in the pro-British community, which lasted almost a week in April. It was the worst outbreak of violence since the Good Friday Peace Agreement was signed in 1998.

“If the way like that [Nordirlandprotokoll] works, undermines the Good Friday Agreement instead of supporting it, then obviously we have a problem, “said Frost. “That wasn’t the point of the protocol – and if it does, it won’t work properly.”

Tough wrestling

The Northern Ireland Protocol was negotiated and agreed upon by Frost himself, who was then chief negotiator of the United Kingdom in the Brexit talks with Brussels. Disputes came to the fore later – during talks on the UK’s official withdrawal agreement from the EU in January 2020 and the trade and cooperation agreement that came into force earlier this year.

In February Boris Johnson’s administration called for negotiations on the protocol to be resumed; British companies mainly complained about the bureaucratic requirements for the delivery of goods to the part of the country.

In March the government unilaterally extended the so-called “grace period” for border controls on agricultural foodstuffs until October instead of implementing it as agreed with Brussels. This in turn prompted the European Commission to take legal action against the United Kingdom, as the unilateral extension violates the terms of the EU Withdrawal Agreement.

Since then there have been talks between EU and UK agencies on how to reduce the problems with the implementation of the protocol. Frost told UK MPs yesterday, however, that negotiations have so far “not been very productive”. He warned that the British government must now “see how far we can go”.

Nor did the minister want to rule out the possibility that London could unilaterally suspend the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Frost also told MPs that there were no plans to align with EU standards for agricultural products, as this would make it difficult to conclude trade agreements with other countries.

Instead, they want to reach a “compromise” with Brussels: The EU should recognize the British rules as equivalent.

[Bearbeitet von Josie Le Blond und Tim Steins]

Brexit, agriculture and food standards

In the agriculture and food sector in particular, it is becoming apparent that the EU and the UK could go different ways in the future. In this Special Report, EURACTIV explains how the agri-food sector could continue after Brexit.

Northern Ireland Protocol: UK “harms itself”

The DUP party leader Arlene Foster has called for changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol in the EU Withdrawal Agreement. Problems continue to exist with large UK retailers delivering goods to Northern Ireland.

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18/05/2021 11:30
of Laura Naka Antonelli

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The UK, fresh from divorce from the European Union with Brexit, it risks becoming the new Italy: this is what emerges from a report by the think tank Resolution Foundation, reported in some articles by Reuters and the Guardian.
In the analysis of the independent think tank we read that the country copes with a decade of major challenges, which could end up undermining the solidity of its economy, bringing it closer to that of Italy than to that of the engine of the European economy, namely Germany.

Among the challenges, there are certainly the problems related to Brexit and those that other European countries also have to face, such as theera post Covid-19, the transition to a zero-emission economy, an aging population and technological changes.
All this, while in the last decade the United Kingdom has been characterized by having suffered 1) the growth of slowest productivity in over 120 years; 2) mobility in the weakest labor market since the 1930s; 3) the strongest inequality than in any other country of the European Union, apart from Bulgaria.
In this situation, the report authors warn if there are no appropriate plans to overcome these vulnerabilities, the British GDP per capita will come closer to that of Italy, than to that of Germany, by the end of this decade.
“The UK is now facing a decisive decade, with the post-Covid-19 era, Brexit and the transition to net zero emissions of pollutants coming along with the major changes taking place in technology and demographics. This is much more important than the economy. Any failure to overcome these challenges would leave the nation divided and weaker, ”he stressed Clive Cowdery, founder and co-chair of the investigation “The Economy 2030” drawn up by think tank Resolution Foundation.
It is noted in the report that the country needs a new approach and that “what makes a new approach essential it is the magnitude of the change arriving”.
In addition to presenting the various challenges, the analysis also provides some clarifications:

• Covid-19: the result of the pandemic is that there are more people in smart-working (in the home working report): this means that the range of lifestyle choices that professionals can make has widened. But it also means that those who earn less will have to find a new job in new working environments.
• Brexi: the UK benefits from a newfound freedom of choice, but it also faces higher costs in its relations with the EU, which remains its main trading partner.
• Zero net emissions: decarbonization will create economic opportunities, but urgent action is needed. The UK will have to move from installing nearly zero heat pumps per year toinstall 3,000 of them every day, by 2030.
• Technology: the arrival of new technologies will improve but will also upset the standard of living. In this regard, the OECD predicts that one in seven jobs could disappear due to the automation process, over the next 15-20 years.
• Demography: the ratio of people aged under 20 or over 65 to those aged 20 to 64 will increase from 72% to 79% in the period from 2020 to 2030: this will be the faster change than in any other decade of the first half of the 21st century.

Finally, the report points out that, although the government of Boris Johnson has pledged to rebuild the country’s economy with various slogans “build back better”, “level up” e “global Britain”, no economic plan has yet been produced for the achievement of these noble objectives.
Some recently released macro data is worth mentioning:
In the first quarter of 2021, when the UK was in the grip of the his third lockdown, GDP fell by 1.5%, according to data reported by the National Statistics Office.
Although better than estimated, Britain’s gross domestic product – as Samuel Tombs, an economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, pointed out to Reuters – has shown that the country has lagged behind other G7 economies for the fourth consecutive quarter. However, Tombs pointed out, it is possible that UK GDP will grow by 5% in the period between April and June. See also industrial production data.
The Bank of England predicts for UK GDP a recovery up to + 7.25% in the whole of 2021, at the strongest pace of growth fueled by the arms race ahead of the Second World War; that said, in 2020, the year of Covid and the lockdown measures, the British economy collapsed by 9.8%, reporting the strongest contraction in more than 300 years.