Trade with EU

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A lot of my information comes from a paper:

http://www.regents.ac.uk/media/1460304/SEE-Background-paper-final-Feb-2015.pdf

And I make no apology for that.

EU surpasses USA GDP. It is the largest single GDP in the world. Although the percentage of EU GDP to world GDP has fallen due to the increase in GDP in the BRIC countries, Brazil, India, Russia and China.

44% of our goods and services are exported to EU. 53% of our goods and service are from EU.

The value of non-EU trade with UK has been increasing. This is why the value of our goods exported to EU has fallen from 55% to 44%.

Trade with EU is split, 2/3 goods and 1/3 services. But goods trade is increasing at a slower rate than services.

Our EU balance of trade has been deteriorating at a faster rate than our surplus with non-EU countries has been increasing.

46% of assets held in UK belong to EU organisations and residents.

36 of the largest companies in UK, along with such notable organisation as TUC, CBI, Moody’s, Chief Constables and many more want us to remain in EU for prosperity of UK. Then there’s the countries that want or advise us to remain in EU: Switzerland, USA, China and of course the EU itself.

For the UK to continue its prosperity it must enter a trade agreement with EU. Anything else is political and commercial suicide.

But Switzerland for example, currently has 120 separate trade agreements with the EU. It took nine years to negotiate these agreements.

”The lengthy negotiations left Swiss businesses in a position of uncertainty for nearly a decade.”

“Thus, it is doubtful whether the EU would be willing to negotiate a similar pattern of agreements with the UK.”

“Switzerland is not within the EEA and does not participate in the free movement of services.”

“When Switzerland formally requested a renegotiation of its free movement treaty with the EU in July 2014, the EU refused.” http://www.regents.ac.uk/media/1460304/SEE-Background-paper-final-Feb-2015.pdf

Switzerland is a member of the EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement) of which Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein are also members.

All four countries are implicitly including the ‘four freedoms’: Goods, services, capital and PEOPLE.


So membership of this group or any other trade agreement with EU must accept the ‘four freedoms.’

“In summary, EFTA-EEA Membership would mean that the UK would face more barriers, both tariff and regulatory, in trading with major partners, would still have to contribute substantially to EU funds, would have to accept free movement of people and would continue to have to abide by EU Single Market legislation (including that for financial services and the Working Time Directive) whilst having no effective say in its formulation.” http://www.regents.ac.uk/media/1460304/SEE-Background-paper-final-Feb-2015.pdf


Then there’s the NAFTA organisation (North American, Mexico and Canada)

“It must be quite unlikely that the members of NAFTA would welcome the UK as a new member. In each case their trade with the EU exceeds their trade with the UK alone. Leaving the EU to join a trade-bloc where the UK’s standing is far less well established would be economically dangerous. The UK is thousands of miles away from the NAFTA countries and economic models tend to show positive correlation for trade between comparable sizes of economies and distances between countries.” http://www.regents.ac.uk/media/1460304/SEE-Background-paper-final-Feb-2015.pdf


The Commonwealth possibility.

“The Commonwealth does not act collectively on behalf of its members in international trade talks, unlike the EU which uses its size to leverage better trade deals for its members. Commonwealth countries have shown no interest in it developing a major new role as a trading body and if it did, it would effectively be starting from scratch” http://www.regents.ac.uk/media/1460304/SEE-Background-paper-final-Feb-2015.pdf

Summary

“There are, in theory at least, a number of potential (preferential) trading alternatives to EU membership for the UK but there are serious doubts as to whether any of them would be on offer.”

“Furthermore, access to the Single Market has only been granted to the EFTA countries (and Switzerland) on the basis that they accept the EU’s free movement of persons rules; it is inconceivable that the EU would adopt a different approach for the UK given the number of EU citizens already working here.”

“Judged against the benchmark at the outset of this paper (unfettered access to the EU, as a member, to the Single Market and the ability to influence effectively the rules for that market), none of the suggested alternatives to EU membership for the UK reach this benchmark.”

http://www.regents.ac.uk/media/1460304/SEE-Background-paper-final-Feb-2015.pdf
 
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The bottom line as I see it, is that we import £billions of goods from Germany every year, which sustains thousands of German jobs. There is no way they would suddenly stop selling their BMWs, VWs et al when we leave the EU. As for renegotiating 'existing trade', both sides would ensure a quick resolution for the same reason.

As for the militant French farmers, how long do you think they would just stand back and let Brussels stop then selling their Champagne, wine and farm products to us?
 
The EU manages trade and investment relations with non-EU countries through the EU's trade and investment policy.

Trade policy is an exclusive power of the EU – so only the EU, and not individual member states, can legislate on trade matters and conclude international trade agreements.
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/policy-making/

Heaven forbid we had to make our trade policy.
 
Why would the biggest companies in the UK want to change the conditions that allowed them become the biggest?
Christmas-like-voting-turkeys-for.........rearrange to suit.
 
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Himaginn says blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Ultimately, it's about SOVEREIGNTY.
 
Yet another dull go nowhere EU thread opened up by the forums own ******... One is enough. If we had a moderator who knew what he was doing then he would have told you that... Sadly the moderator has the brains of cheese
 
As the thread with all of the historical benefits brought by being in and by the EU has been closed, I'd like to support Simon Sweeney's observation with the following report about UK's important contributions to wold science innovations.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexitvote/2...myths-about-british-science-after-an-eu-exit/

The report summarises with such notable comments as:
However, the benefits of the UK remaining within the structure of the EU go beyond the clear internationalisation-impact dynamic. The increasing competence of the EU in science management is beginning to be felt.

Clearly, trade is seriously affected by innovation. Any process that reduces the UK's partnership with other large and important organisations must consider the affect it would have on our global contribution and global influence.
 
The bottom line as I see it, is that we import £billions of goods from Germany every year, which sustains thousands of German jobs. There is no way they would suddenly stop selling their BMWs, VWs et al when we leave the EU. As for renegotiating 'existing trade', both sides would ensure a quick resolution for the same reason.

As for the militant French farmers, how long do you think they would just stand back and let Brussels stop then selling their Champagne, wine and farm products to us?
Doug, most of the comments in my post referring to trade with EU, refer to exports to EU, not imports from EU.
Obviously our disassociation with EU does not prevent the EU's ability to export to us. It does very seriously affect our ability to export to EU!
That also includes financial services between UK and EU.

Your comment about negotiating trade agreements is fallacious and misleading.
The current Free Trade Agreement with EU would end abruptly two years after June 2018! No ifs, no buts and no maybes.
It took Iceland 9 years (and counting) to negotiate a trade deal with China.
It took 9 years for Switzerland to negotiate a trade deal with EU. (120 of them)
It took 7 years for Canada, North America, Mexico to negotiate a trade deal with EU. (NAFTA)
The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) has been in negotiation since 1990 and is not expected to be finalised until 2019/2020. That's 30 years!

You said "would ensure a quick resolution ". Please specify your timeline comparison for "quick". Do you mean in terms of Parliamentary sessions?
In terms of eons? In terms of intervals between earthquakes? In terms of droughts in UK? In terms of major volcanic eruptions?

Don't forget, imports to UK from EU would be unaffected. They would continue unabated.
I don't view 7 to 10 years as quick resolution in terms of UK's exports and GDP.
 
On a pedantic note:
Canada, North America, Mexico
:?:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement

Yes I see, your query. My mistake. It is not between NAmerican countries and EU, but merely between NAmerican countries. Or should I have said USA, Canada and Mexico?
Perhaps it emphasises my point about the time it takes to negotiate agreements.
Perhaps if the EU had been involved it would have taken longer.
 
Yes ? Canada is part of North America.
There is also another little country.

upload_2016-2-24_11-38-9.png
 

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The report to which I very recently referred on innovation ,etc really is worth a read.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexitvote/2...myths-about-british-science-after-an-eu-exit/
Here are just some of the pertinent comments from that report:
"Collectively, the EU remains the world leader in terms of its global share of science researchers (22.2%), ahead of China (19.1%) and the US (16.7%), according to Unesco’s Science Report (released last month). This would be a fairly moot bragging point, were it not for how the EU science programme has managed to network the European countries into a collaborative engine which serves as a hub of science in the wider world. This, in turn, has benefited UK science prowess demonstrably."

"The EU is now a community of scientific talent which can flow between countries without visas or points systems and which can assemble bespoke constellations of cutting-edge labs, industry and small businesses to tackle challenges local and global. "

"... there is a capacity to pick’n’mix the best labs to do the job – and apply for funding from a single source."

"Given that the European Research Area produces a third of the world’s research outputs, this communal spirit provides a powerful environment to combine leading players across borders to common advantage."

“Our current assessment is that leaving the EU would be likely to impose substantial costs on the UK economy and would be a very risky gamble.”
Analysis by economists at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP)"

This report, along with the other one that I referred to in the OP, have such powerful messages, they ought to be sufficient on their own to persuade the undecided.

BTW, there is a reference in that report to the Swiss referendum (50.3% to 49.7% to limit immigration which had a fundamental effect on scientific research and education for the Swiss people.
It nearly led to a complete breakdown of the Swiss - EU relationship.
 
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I am not complaining but querying.

There was no text, merely the link, in your post of 11.29 when I saw it which is why I posted the image at 11.39.

Did you edit your post or, for some reason, did the text only appear later?

There is no "Last edited: time" marker.
 
Yes ? Canada is part of North America
So is Mexico. While the language and culture often make people think of it as being more associated with Latin/Central America, it is geographically part of North America.

Don't forget, imports to UK from EU would be unaffected. They would continue unabated.
Why do you think that British exports to EU countries would decline significantly but that imports from the EU would remain at the same levels?

You're claiming that because the EU would impose import duties on British goods that would increase their final price to European buyers and make them less attractive against alternatives, so why don't you think that the same would apply to British buyers of goods made in the EU? Or do you think that the U.K. government would continue to allow EU-made goods into the country duty free?
 
Don't forget, imports to UK from EU would be unaffected. They would continue unabated.
Why do you think that British exports to EU countries would decline significantly but that imports from the EU would remain at the same levels?
You're claiming that because the EU would impose import duties on British goods that would increase their final price to European buyers and make them less attractive against alternatives, so why don't you think that the same would apply to British buyers of goods made in the EU? Or do you think that the U.K. government would continue to allow EU-made goods into the country duty free?
I suspect that the pound will suffer even worse falls on the world markets in the event of a Brexit. It's already fallen to its lowest level for something like 10 years. At this rate parity with the euro is not far away. This will help to make exports to EU cheaper for EU citizens but imports to UK from anywhere else will be more expensive for UK citizens so imports will be severely affected, simply because the price of them will increase. Thus obviously reduced disposable income will meant less imported goods bought.
As UK exports will be cheaper for EU citizens, due to the pound devaluation, it will help but not completely offset the price rises caused by import tariffs.. Thus EU manufactures will exploit the opportunity to be easily more competitive.
If, the pound does not devalue, then the price of UK goods will be that much more expensive in EU.

What the UK government does about customs duty is not totally irrelevant, but quite a bit irrelevant.
But what is obvious, exports to EU will suffer. If the UK government also applies tariffs in response imports will also suffer.
I see that as a lose/lose scenario.

So when I said imports would continue unabated, it would be reliant on two factors, the value of the pound, and the actions of UK government.
I fail to see how the pound could possibly revalue on the world stage. Thus it's a lose/lose.
 
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