News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
The United Kingdom is once again on course for a legal confrontation with the European Union after announcing that it is unilaterally extending the ‘grace period’ for businesses moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland by a further six months.
The businesses which sit at the fulcrum of the United Kingdom’s’s new post-Brexit trade settlement – Northern Ireland’s retailers – are making the best of a situation that they never wanted to be in. But they are insistent that they need more time to establish a workable business model.
The door remains open to possible extensions of the various ‘grace periods’ facilitating’ post-Brexit movements of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland – but only if the UK shows itself to be more serious about fulfilling its own commitments under the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An overview of developments in EU trade this week by Chris Horseman and Iana Dreyer.
This has been a very odd week, strangely busy with little actually happening in terms of decisions. The EU is preparing the ground for many further developments. Some more on this below.
The EU’s vice-president Maroŝ Šefčovič will travel to London next week for talks with the UK government to discuss six key demands London made on the implementation of the Withrawal Agreement’s Northern Ireland Protocol that would involve extending key deadlines for trade facilitations relating to Northern Ireland. The UK government …
A temporary crisis last week exposed the reality that Northern Ireland has a unique place in the United Kingdom, the European Union and the World Trade Organization, one which requires care and attention.
This article was updated on 30 January. The European Commission released a regulation submitting exports of vaccines covered by the European Union’s advanced purchase programme to an export license. The move comes days after Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a ‘transparency’ mechanism for such exports as a row …
An overview of key developments Businesses struggle to adapt to ‘new normal’ outside EU single market Pressure is continuing to pile up on the UK government as the costs of the non-tariff barriers created by Brexit become ever more evident. Agricultural and fisheries products have been worst hit, with new …
Steel manufacturers in Northern Ireland have become the latest group of businesses to make an unpleasant discovery about the practical outworkings of the United Kingdom’s new status outside of the European Union’s single market and customs union. Importers of steel into Northern Ireland from the EU are now potentially liable …
