Brexit: what will change between the UK and the European Union
Brexit marks a new chapter in trade relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union but also the end of a tumultuous 47-year relationship.
Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD AFP / File
Text by: RFI Follow
6 min
After ten months of endless negotiations, the UK and the EU have reached a post-Brexit trade deal.
Many changes in trade between London and Brussels are expected on both sides of the Channel from January 1, 2021, but it is also the end of a tumultuous relationship.
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Qualified as unprecedented,
the trade agreement
makes it possible to preserve the United Kingdom's access, without customs duties or quotas, to the single European market and vice versa.
A market that has nearly 450 million consumers.
This is an important measure for the automotive, agrifood, aeronautics and space sectors, for which the UK market represents an important outlet.
Customs return
The agreement marks major changes such as the return of customs abolished in 1993. All transactions must now be subject to an import and export declaration.
Controls for imports of live animals or food are becoming systematic, and veterinary validation is mandatory.
As for European and British farmers, they will be able to continue to export without customs duties and without quotas.
Products from across the Channel will have to continue to comply with environmental, labor law and tax standards to avoid dumping.
But Massimiliano Giansanti, vice-president of Copa, a European committee of professional agricultural organizations, is not yet fully convinced:
The deal made is a good deal.
There could be a better deal, that's for sure.
We could also have had an agreement much earlier and arrived at December 31 with a series of clear and precise agreements.
But it's better than nothing.
The concerns of Massimiliano Giansanti
Pauline Gleize
As regards fishing, one of the sticking points in the negotiations, the agreement provides that European fishermen will continue to fish in British fish-bearing waters in return for a gradual drop in their catches of 25% d 'by 2026. The sharing will then have to be renegotiated each year.
On the other hand, the agreement provides little
for the City
, the leading European financial center, which nevertheless represents 80% of the British economy.
From January 1, UK-based financial groups can no longer sell their financial products in the EU.
Only those whose local regulations are considered equivalent to those in force in the EU are admitted.
The end of 47 years of complicated relationships too
If this agreement marks the start of a new partnership between the United Kingdom and the European Union, it is also the epilogue of a tumultuous relationship that will have lasted 47 years.
And yet, Winston Churchill in 1946 already spoke of the “
United States of Europe
”.
A project guaranteeing peace, judged the British Prime Minister.
But no question that his country participates.
In the 1950s, negotiations were underway to create the EEC (European Economic Community), the ancestor of the European Union.
That's when a British civil servant has this famous phrase: “
Thank God, what you make has no chance to exist.
London eventually knocked on the door, but twice, in 1963 and 1967, General de Gaulle vetoed it.
The official entry was finally made in 1973. But after already heated debates and a divided political class.
Margaret Thatcher, who supported European integration at the time, then took command of the United Kingdom.
She becomes a feared figure in Brussels with her famous "
I want my money back
" (
I want my money back,
in French).
In 1984, the Prime Minister finally obtained a reduction on the British contribution to the European budget.
London has also campaigned a lot for the enlargement of Europe to the East, which came to fruition in 2004. But it is ultimately the presence considered too important on British soil of European workers, especially from the East, which will become in 2016 during the referendum one of the arguments of the
Brexiters
.
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