UK-EU relations: what are the prospects? With Anand Menon
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- Watch as UK in a Changing Europe Director Anand Menon opens the UKICE Annual Conference 2024 with an introduction to our latest report on UK-EU relations.
You can read the report in full here: ukandeu.ac.uk/reports/uk-eu-r...
25:21 I agree! It’s again all about the economy here. Not a word about the political EU project that emphasizes Human rights, worker’s rights and consumer’s rights to name a few.
And that’s the problem because the UK always thought about the European project as a huge Free Trade Zone. Hence the numerous exceptions, opt-outs and even the choice between opt-ins or opt-outs for opt-outs.
In effect the old EEC.
The Brexit project has failed. The UK's influence in Europe is negligible. The EU is stronger than ever and the Brexit project was, is and will be a very English problem...
@@michaelmazowiecki9195 Nope. Read the Treaty of Rome, it’s all there, hence the C in EEC.
@@louis-philippearnhem6959 UK always wanted a wide but shallow free trade area. Nothing more. That changed during Thatcher's reign and the collapse of the Soviet Empire which resulted in the widening across Central eastern Europe. Her idea of the Single Market brought unexpected consequences: the freedoms that were the base of the EU.
Tbf, everybody is in it for the perks
9:14 Reset the tone?
“They were in with loads of opt-outs and now want out with loads of opt-ins.”
Luxembourg prime minister Xavier Bettel.
Do you not thnk that the size of our contribution meritted a degree of flexibility?
@@paullarneNo, why? The UK contribution was not that big after rebates and EU subsidies into UK. The working rate of EU contribution is 2% of GDP. UK never paid that amount.
@@vullings1968 You may care to fact check that. I think you have NATO and the EU mixed up and we always exceeded the required contributions on both fronts. Boy do you miss our money!
@@paullarne Not so much. Contrary to British belief, UK was not the biggest contributor to EU. In 2019, the last year of full membership fees for UK, UK had a net contribution of 7.4 billion. Germany 13 bn....
Per capita this means € 110,- per Brit per year. The Netherlands paid € 176,47 per Dutchmen per year.
So nominally and relative not the biggest contributor by far.
@@vullings1968 Ah, back to the Membership fees again. For its slightly higher membership fee Germany got a huge trade surplus with the rest of the EU while the UK got a huge deficit. Fortunately that's falling now we're out.
11:57 What negotiations are you talking about? There will be no renegotiation about the TCA.
When the EU needs a deal with CPTPP, and it will,then the TCA will become toast and the UK will be looking to settle old scores with the weight of a larger body behind it.
Labour has mentioned very little. But two rather important topics are a veterinary (SPS) agreement, that perhaps would be most important for Northern Ireland, and to limit friction at the Channel for e.g. regulated chemicals.
It's impossible to say, in advance, whether the UK will be able to entice the Council to give the Commission a mandate to negotiate. And even more impossible to tell whether a Starmer government will dare to accept the "ruthless" conditions demanded by the 27.
Menon seems sceptic.
And so am I.
@@paullarne Awww, bless.
By the way, what "old scores" are you referring to?
@@kurtgodel5236 The disgraceful treatment of the UK was a member and the even worse treatment since we regained our freedom. Defend yourselves next time, we've wasted far too much blood on you the last two times.
@@jmolofsson We can discuss anything so long as it doesn't compromise any of our new trade deals or the prospect of negotiating even more.
I’m rather glad the politicians pulled out as it’s nice to hear a cleared unfiltered untwisted presentation of facts from someone whose job it is to understand and communicate reality. A single market of 530m people 23m away vs none of those things. Populism inter nationally closing down market access, or demanding punitive terms. Assumptions were assumptions, we now have to deal with fact.
Interesting analysis
It wasn’t a cliff edge because Brexit was spread over several years in the hope that people would not notice it’s impact.
34:38 That’s the Brussels Effect baby! 😅
Which we were part of and formed in 40 odd years of EEC/EU membership!
@@bryangeake5826 It didn't work so well for us did it?
@@paullarne What??? It bloody well saved post Imperial declining UK from staying as the Sick Man of Europe with low growth, low productivity and high inflation!!! Errrr that is happening again, wonder why!!??
@@paullarne What??? It saved post Imperial declining UK from staying as the Sick Man of Europe with low growth, low productivity and high inflation!!! Errrr that is happening again, wonder why!!??
@@bryangeake5826 Incorrect. The UK joined the EEC in Jan 1973 and Denis Healey needed the IMF bailout in Sept 1976. The cost of being in the EEC exacerbated the "Sick Man of Europe". Inflation was 28% in 1975, two years after joining. Several causes, but the EEC was certainly one of them. The Thatcher reforms of the 1980s turned us around in spite of the EEC, not because of it.
In the post-Brexit, post-Covid time we're in you'll see the IMF forecasts put us well ahead of Germany and France, and that indeed is what's happening.
Good to see Anand push back on the midwit, high status 'vibes' view on UK less attractive, with the hard data of immigration
23:53 Single Market membership: The UK would need to first rejoin EFTA before it could apply to join the EEA. In addition, there is no guarantee that the EU would agree to the UK rejoining EFTA and EEA.
Joining the EEA would require complex and lengthy negotiations with the EU and the other EFTA members. It is not clear that these negotiations would be successful, and there is a risk that they could lead to a deadlock.
Joining the EEA would mean that the UK would have to accept EU law and regulations on a wide range of issues, including trade, goods, services, and labour. I don’t see that happening as there is no clear majority in favour of the UK rejoining the EEA or EFTA. Polls suggest that the British public is divided on the issue, with a significant proportion opposed to it.
The EFTA countries rejected an UK membership several times now. Don't come up with that ever again-will not happen. Period.
There are no negotiations-no pie in the sky, again.
Article 49 and Copenhagen criteria.
Nothing else-no other way, the EU will not go out of its way to do a third party any favors.
My view too. Establishing relations with our friends in the outside really is so much easier than dealing with the EU who were never truly our friends so its not going to happen.
EFTA and EEA are separate. No need to be part of EFTA to join EEA.
@@pierrechardaire8525 The EEA is an agreement between the EU and EFTA, that is how far for reality you are.
@@paullarne The EU bent over backwards to give you opt outs etc.... You clearly have not got a clue just how accommodating they were....
The UK is a third country. It has little influence in a changing Europe and in a changing world.
In fact, despite leaving the EU, the UK had the fastest growth in the G7 in Q1 2024, upwardly revised to an annualised 2.8% today. By contrast, the EU’s largest economy is weak, hampered by the traffic-light coalition and hammered by high energy prices. Germany has lost its way: it cannot compete in vehicle production, its infrastructure is crumbling and the rise of the AfD in the east will complicate matters no end. From a British perspective, we can look at these issues with a degree of schadenfreude. The next major problem will be the new government in France, which is seeking to reduce its contributions to the EU budget. The problem for the EU is that countries like it when they can extract huge sums, like Poland, but don’t like it when they are the ones paying the bills.
The UK should stay a rule taking appendix of the EU.
UK cherry picking, as usual?
The European Union is entering a critical phase in its development, made more complex by the relative economic decline of both France and Germany vis a vis the Eastern European states. The consequences of this are profound. The axis of France and Germany, which always complicated the UK’s relationship, is weaker. It would be a mistake to explore anything more than minor adjustments to ease the trading relationship with the EU, which would be beneficial both ways. With a more fractious France, Eastern European states will be keen to bolster defence relationships with the UK. There is no great appetite either in the UK or EU for the UK to rejoin. Indeed, as Norway, Switzerland and Iceland prove, membership is not required to be prosperous country.
If Starmer wants to tear down the barriers to trade you need to join the EU and be a reliable and full member. The Single Market needs common standards and regulations for a frictionless trade with reliable members. Either you’re in or you’re out.
EFTA or EEA are no options, neither is the Swiss model. And btw Norway already said: No way.
@@louis-philippearnhem6959 Agreed, we're out. The EU is only 14% of World GDP and we are clearly with the 86% who are out.
@@paullarneSo you join the ranks of Mongolia and Rwanda? They are also part of that 86%. What matters is whether you can trade easily with your closest neighbours. That is why countries set up trading blocs with countries close to them. ASEAN, NAFTA, Mercosur and even CPTPP are defined geographically. US and China are the only single countries that have an economy big enough to go on their own, and even they seek economic cooperation.
@@vullings1968 I don't think Mongolia and Rwanda are in CPTPP and have the TCA wit the EU/EEA now do they?
@@paullarne But CPTPP also doesn't represent 86% of world GDP, does it? The CPTPP membership (and tha AUS and NZ-deals) might even bite UK in the behind, as it will certainly not speed up any lessening of checks between UK and EU, the biggest tradepartner by far of UK.
Interesting to see that Menon is clear he doesn't believe Springford's doppelganger model on GDP loss.
It keeps being quoted regularly in the Guardian and in their comments section as if it is 'holy writ'.
Yeah, except that much more reliable economists than Jonathan Porter (from whom Menon's opinion comes from) think the ONS estimation of 4% is too low like Adam Posen. I read the ONS report and it was based on the UK having free trade agreements with the US, China and a dozen other major developing economies by the time they left the EU. Those have not manifested. And the dobbelganger model currently shows a 5.5% lesser GDP in comparison to the economic performance of other comparable economies currently. I don't see that being so far of what is predicted given faster growth later can reduce the current lack in growth.
No!! He says the MAGNITUDE of the model may not be correct, but the model was a reasonable analysis!! This is what Brexiteers do, re-vision reality partially even when it obvious that they are wrong!
@@samhartford8677 Correxit!
@@bryangeake5826 But it's all about MAGNITUDE, Bryan.
There's a big difference between 1-2% and 4-5% when talking about GDP.
@@catinthehat906 Yes, the model is sound, whether its a 4% or 5.5% contraction of the UK economy, Brexit has damaged the UK, we agree!