News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Friday, April 25, 2025
The Institute for Government released a new edition of its Brexit ‘readiness’ reports today. The 12-pager offers a glimpse of the the thickness of the fog in key areas of policy as Britain faces the serious prospect of leaving the EU in less than two months without an agreement that …
Despite their prime importance for Europe, Britain and the United States, there’s been little deep thinking about the future of transatlantic relations post-Brexit, both at the geostrategic level and at the more mundane economic level. But that is bound to change. In Britain, the focus after the 2016 referendum has mainly …
Both Brussels and London have started to prepare contingency plans as the possibility that Britain ‘crashes out’ of the EU next March is becoming a genuine possibility. The aim is to avoid the most severe of disruptions. In Britain hardly anything is yet ready to salvage existing trade arrangements and …
The British government and the European Commission have been holding intense discussions over customs and border arrangements in recent days as crunch time beckons for a UK withdrawal agreement. There’s been plenty of noise around the pivotal file in the deal: border arrangements in Northern Ireland. Now we start to …
The UK government has released a third batch of technical ‘notices’ in which it sets out to businesses trading across the Irish Sea or English Channel the type and extent of paperwork it will face should Britain leave the European Union next March without an agreement that includes a transitional …
A quick Friday blog post for the Brexit-obsessed among our readers before heading into the week-end. Britain’s House of Commons Exiting the EU Committee’s released the transcript of a meeting with the EU’s lead negotiator Michel Barnier and his number two, Sabine Weyand. The text offers some interesting insights into the …
The United Kingdom is expected to finalise legislation in the coming months that would give the government a legal basis for its coming independent trade policy. While practically all areas of legislation will affect trade and trade policy in some way, we concentrate on two crucial texts: the ‘Taxation (Cross-border …
The Department for International trade is working hard behind the scenes to try to ‘roll over’ as many EU free trade agreements as possible for Brexit date. Several months ago, DIT officials were often heard making optimistic statements about the likelihood of having these agreements ready by next March. How …
An ‘orderly’ withdrawal of Britain from the European Union looks increasingly unlikely this summer. Unless both sides find a solution to the Irish border quickly, that is. Or politics in Britain change dramatically. Or the EU changes its approach. Or a bit of everything. Britain had hoped to resolve the Irish …
All policy people in Europe are looking at the UK’s freshly released White Paper on the future EU-UK relationship released this afternoon in London. The paper was met with caution in Brussels, scepticism in Britain, and rejection by US president Donald Trump. It is basically more of the same – …
