EU unveils back-up plans to avoid 'no-deal' Brexit chaos

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

U.S. MARKETS
DECEMBER 10, 2020 2:00 AM UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

EU unveils back-up plans to avoid 'no-deal' Brexit chaos

By Robin Emmott, Alistair Smout
4 MIN READ

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) -The European Union’s executive on Thursday laid out contingency plans for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit at the end of the year to limit disruption to air traffic, and road and rail travel after talks between British and EU leaders failed to break an impasse.

The European Commission also proposed that Britain and the EU continue to offer reciprocal access to their fishing waters for up to a year, potentially easing tension around one of the most emotive sticking points in the trade negotiations.

Britain told the EU earlier it should make significant concessions to break the deadlock by the end of the weekend for clarity about the finale to the five-year-old Brexit crisis.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the EU’s chief executive, Ursula von der Leyen, gave themselves until Sunday to decide on their next steps after failing to overcome persistent rifts over a “lively” dinner of turbot on Wednesday.

“There’s still clearly some scope to keep talking but there are significant points of difference that remain,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told BBC TV, adding that both sides needed to take stock at the weekend.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu/eu-unveils-back-up-plans-to-avoid-no-deal-brexit-chaos-idUSKBN28K0P5

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. I am not seeing much discussion of Ireland of late

Re-establishing a border between the Republic and the North will mean a return to daily bloodshed. There can be NO hard border in Ireland.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. That's one thing they just managed to get an agreement on

Northern Ireland will continue to follow many of the EU's rules, meaning that lorries can continue to drive across the border without having to be inspected.

However, there will be a new "regulatory" border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). That's because, unlike Northern Ireland, Great Britain won't have to follow EU rules in future.
...
From 1 January, some food products arriving in Northern Ireland from England, Scotland or Wales will need to be checked to ensure they meet EU standards - they will need to go through a border control post at sea ports, where paperwork will be checked and some physical inspections will take place.
...
Right now the UK and the EU are negotiating a trade deal to try to eliminate new charges - known as tariffs - from being introduced on other goods from 1 January.

However, even if those talks fail, a temporary exemption has been agreed for Northern Ireland. Known as the trusted trader scheme, the vast majority of goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will not face any tariffs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53724381

And the sections of the Internal Market Bill that said the government might break international law have been dropped:

The government is dropping controversial plans to break international law in relation to Brexit, following a behind-the-scenes deal between the UK and the EU, it has announced.

But EU diplomatic sources warned that while the U-turn was a “reset moment” for relations with the UK, it was not a gamechanger for trade talks, which remain deadlocked.

On Tuesday, the government said it would abandon all the Brexit clauses relating to Northern Ireland in the internal market and finance bills following in exchange for promises by the EU to minimise checks and controls due to be imposed on food and medicines going into Northern Ireland from Great Britain from 1 January.

Details on the checks are expected to be disclosed on Wednesday, but the cabinet minister, Michael Gove, and the European commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, announced they had sealed an agreement “specifically for checks on animals, plants and derived products, export declarations, the supply of medicines, the supply of chilled meats, and other food products to supermarkets”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/08/brexit-uk-drops-plans-to-break-international-law-as-northern-ireland-deal-is-reached

The Unionists and Brexit Ultras are pissed off at this, which frankly is a good sign.

[Miguelito Loveless]

3. Provided things go as planned

this will be great. I just don't trust England's Trump to keep his word.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Analysis from a Queen's University, Belfast professor:

What was perhaps most interesting about his speech was what it didn’t contain. The biggest breakthroughs that had been reported by journalists were not in Gove’s speech. Although he claimed that ‘Northern Ireland’s supermarket supplies’ would be ‘protected’, Gove gave no details of a trusted trader scheme nor of exemptions or derogations. Instead, there would be ‘a grace period for supermarkets to update their procedures’, and ‘up to 12 months’ for the medicines industry to adapt as necessary to the Protocol rules to maintain those critical supplies. The promise of ‘further measures of financial support, helping businesses and communities to prosper and thrive from the end of the year and beyond’ rings a little hollow when considering the scale of adjustment that NI businesses are having to make in a context of pandemic-induced crisis.

‘Brextensity’ on top of crisis seems as cruel as it is unnecessary. At least now the Protocol should come fully into force without it being the subject of legal action by the EU against the UK. But the significant progress made is just at the level of decision-making, which should have been completed months ago. The lows and highs of the drama at the start of this week may have played well to a certain audience, but they have felt insulting and exhausting to those who simply want to know what to do to keep in business in less than three weeks.

Northern Ireland is not ‘sorted’. There are two things Northern Ireland urgently needs.

First, detailed information and clear answers to questions, and reasonable time and ‘grace’ to adapt. Moreover, the operational systems for the new procedures need to be at least functional. Obviously. And, secondly, above all else, we need a UK-EU deal. It has always been the case that the further apart the UK and the EU sit, the more difficult it would be for Northern Ireland to remain in the middle, closely attached to both. If there is No Deal, then no amount of mitigations or packages (or, indeed, sovereignty-swagger) will compensate for the disruption it will cause to the UK’s internal market and, longer-term, Northern Ireland’s place within it.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2020/12/10/48-hours-of-brextensity-northern-ireland-is-not-sorted/