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The Brexit talks between London and Brussels are enduring beyond the most pessimistic forecasts and just two weeks after the end of the transition period it is still not certain that the No Deal chasm can be avoided. The prevailing narrative in Europe is that, as usual Boris johnson he’s behaving like an irrational madman, that his thing is just propaganda and that the UK doesn’t give a damn about the risks he runs. After all, the British Prime Minister in Europe certainly does not enjoy an excellent reputation, and even during the first wave of the pandemic he was described as a Darwinian willing to let 500,000 Britons die on the altar of herd immunity. But if we try to look at things from his point of view we would realize that perhaps the unreasonable one is not him, or at least not only him.
Non-regressivity
The requests that the European Union has made on the two most intricate points in which the negotiations have run aground, the so-called equality of conditions and fishing, are quite forceful and it is not surprising that until now they have not made any nation with which The EU has signed a trade agreement. We start from the equality of conditions, which is the principle of equal treatment of companies to guarantee that there are no distortions of competition. The European negotiator, Michel barnier, and its British counterpart, David frost, readily accepted the principle of non-regression. This means that in the future, the parties agree not to lower their standards in terms of labor and environmental rights, which would generate a competitive advantage in the market. If my companies lower their wages or don’t have to reduce pollution, they will be able to produce at lower prices and beat their competitors. And so far we are.
Future commitments
However, what made Jonson jump in his chair was the request (which he says has only come in the last few months), to also include an equivalency clause that also applies to the future. Brussels said that if one day the blockade decided to raise its standards on labor and environmental rights, the UK would be forced to do the same, under penalty of automatic tariffs. But why should the UK, which is no longer a member country, tie its hands for the future? What country would do it? The British, whether we like it or not, have chosen Brexit, and they have done so by confirming the election three times, first with the 2016 referendum and then with the election of Teresa May and finally with Johnson’s own win last year, which basically had only one point on the electoral agenda: End Brexit, end Brexit. Since the British are no longer part of the EU, they cannot help shape its decisions like all member countries, so why should they accept them in future as well?
Different applications to Canada
Such a request has not been made, for example, in the other major trade agreements of the EU, that of Japan and that of Canada, Ceta. Chapter 23 of the latter, for example, speaks of the commitment “not to undermine labor rights” and to respect “the standards of the International Labor Organization”, but then it is added that the agreement “protects the rights of both that parties regulate their own labor market, obviously without prejudice to the two preconditions. More or less the same is true for environmental issues. The UK would like to be denied this right, and can we really blame Johnson for not accepting it? It is clear that the British market is much more interconnected with the European than the Canadian will be, but this does not give us the right to ask the British to change their laws in the future just because we do.
The pride of the United Kingdom
Among other things, it is worth mentioning that Johnson’s UK was the first to commit to a net zero emissions target by 2050 in national law and that UK minimum wages (which in some countries do not even exist) are among the highest in Europe. “I would like to dispel the absurd caricature of Britain as a nation dedicated to curtailing workers’ rights and protecting the environment, as if we had been saved from ‘Dickensian’ misery only by enlightened EU regulation, as if only out thanks to Brussels. that we do not send the children to clean the chimneys, “said the premier in a speech in Greenwich last February, with a little rhetoric perhaps (as in his style), but with good reason. It is not the last of the developing countries that must focus on labor market deregulation to thrive.
London will have to give in
Obviously, beyond the propaganda Johnson something will have to give, because although he will never admit it and continues to affirm that the British will prosper even with a No Deal, the strong part of this negotiation remains the EU, a bloc of 27 states with a market comparable to that of the United States or China, and in which the British send 43% of their exports, while, for example, Germany, France and Italy through the Canal send only about 6% of their exports. It is obvious who would be harmed the most by the imposition of tariffs after a No Deal. Therefore, the way to reach at least a third arbitration first is being studied to decide whether one of the two parties may impose tariffs on the other and in which sectors.
The Fishing Chapter
When it comes to fishing, the question is first of all of principle, but also of substance. Fishing and fish processing in the UK alone employs around 24,000 people and a gross contribution to gross domestic product of a paltry 0.12 per cent. In fact, however, thanks to the Common Fisheries Policy, according to which the fishing vessels of the EU countries have full access to the waters of each other (except for the first 12 nautical miles from the coast), it was caught up to 57% of what was caught in British seas. of fishing vessels belonging to European companies and only 43% of those of local companies. But why should the UK accept that this continues even now that it is leaving the EU, to make Emmanuel Macron and the French who need those waters happy? With all due respect, they are the waters and they do what they want with us, also because it is one thing to find a compromise, it is one thing to ask (as the EU did initially) to maintain the status quo. Ccà nisciun ‘is stupid, Johnson thought (to use Totò’s words). The British Prime Minister is obviously using fishing as a lever in negotiations, but it is his right, not just a whim. Here too it will be possible to finally reach an agreement, and here too London will be forced to give up more than it would like, but to say that its position is unreasonable is the only thing that is truly unreasonable.
