Category Archives: Trade policy

Halt to Northern Ireland Brexit checks ‘a breach of international law’

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Ireland’s European commissioner criticises decision by DUP minister affecting food and animal imports

A decision by a Democratic Unionist minister to halt all Brexit checks on food and animals entering Northern Ireland has been described by Ireland’s European commissioner as “an absolute breach of international law”.

The move announced by the devolved administration’s agriculture minister, Edwin Poots, on Wednesday has been branded an electioneering stunt by opposition parties in Northern Ireland and has set the UK on a collision course with the EU.

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‘It won’t be easy’: the European exporters battling Brexit bureaucracy

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Paperwork and Covid culminate in another year of headaches for food and wine producers

For more than two decades, Unexport has shipped millions of kilograms of produce annually from farms in the southern Spanish region of Murcia to clients in the UK. Brexit has transformed the relatively straightforward process into a bureaucratic nightmare, yielding border waiting times of up to 10 hours for lorries laden with lemons and lettuce, said Domingo Llamas, its president.

Given the damage already inflicted by the UK’s exit from the bloc, plus the coronavirus pandemic, he sees the final implementation of thrice-delayed checks as just “one other thing” to manage.

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Brexit: ‘the biggest disaster any government has ever negotiated’

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Exclusive: British cheesemaker says Brexit and subsequent trade deals have cost his firm £270,000

A British cheesemaker who predicted Brexit would cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds in exports has called the UK’s departure from the EU single market a disaster, after losing his entire wholesale and retail business in the bloc over the past year. Simon Spurrell, the co-founder of the Cheshire Cheese Company, said personal advice from a government minister to pursue non-EU markets to compensate for his losses had proved to be “an expensive joke”.

“It turns out our greatest competitor on the planet is the UK government because every time they do a fantastic deal, they kick us out of that market – starting with the Brexit deal,” he said.

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End trade barriers to help tackle climate crisis, says WTO chief

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala calls for changes to ensure developing nations are resilient to affects of extreme weather

Removing trade barriers around the world would help to tackle the climate crisis, enable a “just transition” away from fossil fuels and make developing countries more resilient to the impacts of global heating, the head of the World Trade Organization has said.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took over as director general of the global watchdog last March, said: “Trade is part of the solution, not part of the problem … We need a global effort to climate-proof the supply chains and infrastructure of the most vulnerable economies or risk undoing hard-won economic progress and development.”

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Britain and Israel to sign trade and defence deal

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Pact covers Iran as well as cybersecurity, despite controversy over use of Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in UK

Britain and Israel will sign a 10-year trade and defence pact in London on Monday, promising cooperation on issues such as cybersecurity and a joint commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The agreement was announced by Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid, despite evidence that spyware made by Israeli company NSO Group had probably been used to spy on two British lawyers advising the ex-wife of the ruler of Dubai, Princess Haya.

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EU to tell Frost Brexit talks will fail unless he ditches ECJ demand

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Concerns grow that Boris Johnson has already decided to trigger article 16 of Northern Ireland protocol

The EU’s Brexit commissioner will tell David Frost that negotiations over Northern Ireland are doomed to fail unless he drops an “unattainable” demand over the role of the European court of justice.

At a meeting in London on Friday, Maroš Šefčovič will warn the UK’s Brexit minister, Lord Frost, that Downing Street needs to “take a step” towards the EU for the talks to be “meaningful”.

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Macron’s re-election hopes may be driving Brexit fishing row, says Eustice

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UK environment secretary accuses France of using ‘inflammatory’ rhetoric in escalating dispute

Emmanuel Macron’s hopes of being re-elected president may be driving the diplomatic row with France over post-Brexit access to Britain’s fishing waters, the UK’s environment secretary has claimed.

George Eustice accused Paris of using “inflammatory” rhetoric in an escalating dispute over a shortfall in licences for French fishing vessels seeking to operate in the coastal waters of the UK and Jersey.

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PM vows to hit back if France breaks post-Brexit fishing agreement

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No 10 threatens retaliation against French measures including port ban on British fishing boats

A major trade dispute has broken out between the UK and France after Paris banned British fishing boats from key ports, vowed to impose onerous checks on cross-Channel trade, and threatened the UK’s energy supply over a row over post-Brexit rights to UK waters.

The move prompted a dramatic response from Downing Street where a spokesperson for Boris Johnson said the UK government would retaliate over what was a described as a potential breach of international law.

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UK ‘will not cave in over role of European court in NI protocol’

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Government sources say talks with EU ‘constructive’ but ‘we are still far apart on big issues’

The UK government has described talks with the EU over the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol as “constructive” but insisted it was not about to cave in on its demands that the role of the European court of justice be scrapped.

Government sources dampened hopes of a breakthrough, saying the two sides were still “far apart on the big issues”.

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Frost says there is big gap between UK and EU at Northern Ireland Brexit talks

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Brussels has been ‘preparing for worst’, with options ranging from tariffs on UK imports to ditching deal

David Frost, the UK’s Brexit minister, has warned there is a big gap between the EU and the UK negotiating positions as he enters talks with the European Commission over changes to the arrangements for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The EU has offered to sweep away most customs and health checks on animal and plant products entering Northern Ireland under a revision of the current system but both sides privately recognise that fundamental differences remain between their visions for the future.

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Trade war looms as UK set to spurn EU offer on Northern Ireland

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EU leaders urged to push back against No 10’s brinkmanship over role of European Court of Justice

Fears that the UK is heading for a trade war with the EU have been fuelled by strong indications from the government that proposals to be unveiled in Brussels on Wednesday over Brexit arrangements do not go far enough.

The Brexit minister, Lord Frost, will use a speech in Portugal on Tuesday to say that scrapping its prohibition on British sausages to resolve the dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol do not meet the UK and unionists demands.

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Brexit caused huge drop in Great Britain to Ireland exports in 2021

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Irish government figures come days after M&S says it is scrapping 800 lines due to ‘excessive paperwork’

Exports from Great Britain to Ireland fell by almost £2.5bn in the first seven months of the year with Brexit emerging as a major factor, according to official Irish government data.

The figures from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) come just days after Marks & Spencer said it was scrapping 800 product lines from its stores in the republic of Ireland because of “excessive paperwork” and health controls on food.

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Top Thai union leader ‘targeted’ with jail for rail safety campaign

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Case is ‘major blow’ in country with weak workers’ rights and puts trade deals in question, says Human Rights Watch

One of Thailand’s most prominent union leaders is facing three years in prison for his role in organising a railway safety campaign, in a case described as the biggest attack on organised labour in the country in decades.

Rights advocates say the case involving Sawit Kaewvarn, president of the State Railway Union of Thailand, will have a chilling effect on unions and threatens to further weaken workers’ rights in the country.

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UK and EU extend post-Brexit grace period over Northern Ireland indefinitely

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Government source says UK wants to ‘create space for talks to happen without deadlines looming’

Plans for post-Brexit checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland have been suspended indefinitely by the UK after negotiations with the EU reached a stalemate.

Grace periods designed to ease the transition into new trading arrangements and checks on the island of Ireland have twice been extended as part of diplomatic wrangling labelled “the sausage wars”.

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Brexit: food and drink exports to EU suffer ‘disastrous’ decline

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First-half sales fall £2bn, says industry body, as barriers are compounded by staff shortages

Exports of food and drink to the EU have suffered a “disastrous” decline in the first half of the year because of Brexit trade barriers, with sales of beef and cheese hit hardest.

Food and Drink Federation (FDF) producers lost £2bn in sales, a dent in revenue that could not be compensated for by the increased sales in the same period to non-EU countries including China and Australia.

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‘A perfect storm’: UK beet growers fear Brexit threatens their future

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They produce half the country’s sugar needs, but expect new trade deals to make their tough situation worse

In a field in Norfolk, the sight of lush green leaves sprouting from the soil are giving farmer Ed Lankfer cause for optimism. “I think this is one of the best crops we have ever grown,” he says, surveying one of his fields of sugar beet.

The signs are promising so far for this year’s harvest – known in the trade as a campaign – which takes place later than for other crops, during the autumn and winter. It would mark quite the turnaround from 2020’s terrible harvest, when bad weather and pests caused yields of the white sugar-yielding root to plummet by as much as 60%, leaving Lankfer with a £12,000 loss.

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Business chief calls on PM to save north-east from Brexit damage

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James Ramsbotham, CEO of North East England Chamber of Commerce, says letter sent to Boris Johnson remains unanswered

A letter to Boris Johnson sent a fortnight ago by James Ramsbotham called on the prime minister to save the north-east from the “damage being done to our economy” by Brexit and urged him to give it his “most urgent and personal attention”. Two weeks later, it remains unanswered.

Ramsbotham is the chief executive of the North East England Chamber of Commerce and speaks for thousands of businesses caught by the red tape and extra costs of complying with EU rules. In a recent survey, 38% of members said sales to Europe had fallen since January.

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UK rejects EU’s Northern Ireland moves, saying Brexit deal must be renegotiated

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Downing Street says Brussels overtures are insufficient and ‘comprehensive’ solutions needed

Boris Johnson has rejected Brussels’ latest attempt to iron out problems with the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland, insisting that the withdrawal agreement signed last year must be renegotiated.

Related: If Britain wants to resolve the Northern Ireland protocol, this is not the way to do it | Anand Menon and Jill Rutter

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Why is UK publishing a ‘command paper’ on Northern Ireland protocol?

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Trading arrangements continue to be a significant flashpoint in relations with Dublin and Brussels

Just seven months after it came into force, the Northern Ireland protocol is proving once again a significant flashpoint in the UK’s relations with Dublin and Brussels.

On Wednesday, the UK published a “command paper” on the protocol. Some will see it as an attempt to tear up the agreement Boris Johnson struck in 2019, others will see it as a serious attempt to fix a deal they argue was flawed from the beginning but signed to help the British prime minister to get Brexit done, as he had promised.

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UK says it wants to substantially rewrite Northern Ireland Brexit protocol

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Blueprint for alternative arrangement published as sources say protocol was flawed at conception

The UK has launched an audacious bid to rewrite a key plank of the Brexit deal, saying the Northern Ireland protocol was flawed at conception but served its purpose to get the UK out of the EU as “one country”.

The European Commission immediately ruled out a renegotiation of the deal, which was trumpeted by Boris Johnson as a solution to the Irish border impasse two years ago. The commission is understood to be open to some changes on the special arrangements for Northern Ireland, however.

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