We must refrain from unilateral actions that would undermine our unity and our Western partnership against Russian aggression, “said Roberta Mezzola, the new President of the European Parliament. And she was there, though not in the way she intended.
The Maltese Christian Democrat was in Brussels to open the first meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly for Partnership, which, in your view, is either a body to discuss current UK-EU relations or a forum for institutionalized British fraud. Most delegates nodded vigorously at her implicit criticism of Boris Johnson. MEPs hmmmed and bubbled in support. British Europhiles grinned approvingly at each other.
But the real danger to the unity of the West is not the careful abolition of some pointless checks on goods moving within the United Kingdom. The EU’s determination is to treat Britain as a wayward province, not an ally.
There is a clear difference between what the UK is proposing to do and what the EU is threatening in return. Whatever your view of the protocol, no one seriously doubts that Liz Truss is trying to fix the problems identified. It wants to ease the flow of goods and thus allow for the return of power-sharing in Stormont, while respecting the EU’s fears of leaking across the border. In other words, it acts to alleviate the damage, not to cause it.
Unfortunately, the same is not true of her colleagues in Brussels. When the EU freezes the UK from Horizon, a program to fund universities and research institutions, it does so in a spirit of anger and at a certain cost to itself. When it drags on over trade agreements that were due to enter into force last month, it is hurting all countries, halting the development of renewables in the North Sea and prolonging Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. When it rejects mutual recognition to assess the conformity of products, it worsens everyone’s situation.
You may not like the plan not to implement the most severe aspects of the Protocol; but you cannot seriously claim that it is motivated by hostility. The EU, by contrast, speaks openly of “revenge”, even of suspending parts of the trade agreement – actions that have no possible purpose other than to hurt Britain. Remind me again: who is undermining our “Western partnership against Russian aggression”?
I will not describe the full case against the Northern Ireland Protocol again on this page. It was an unequal treaty signed under duress, when the continuity that remains in parliament made it impossible for Britain to leave on better terms. No one in Brussels thought of proposing something so absurd until 2017, when their British aides won a parliamentary majority. The protocol should be annoying. It was created to ensure that Britain suffers from leaving. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, was caught on camera telling Eurocrats that the border must be neutralized before trade talks begin so that Ireland, which needs easy trade with the UK, does not want to be too liberal. overall deal.
Trade between the UK and Northern Ireland is equivalent to 0.0008% of EU GDP. Still, Brussels carries out about 20% of all its inspections of goods for this trade. Some of the current arrangements – to get people to fill out forms to send a parcel to another part of the UK, for example, or to make them pay to take their pets with them – are clearly meant to be annoying. So what can Britain do about it? And how can the EU react?
What is striking about the government’s approach is how conciliatory it is. The United Kingdom can simply say that we will not build any infrastructure on our side of the border; what you decide to do on your side is your job. “But don’t do that. Instead, it will be very necessary to keep the border invisible on both sides.
The quake does not propose to repeal the protocol, but to change parts so that it meets its own stated goals of preserving the integrity of British customs territory and compliance with the Belfast Agreement. It wants a green channel for goods whose destination is local, with checks only being applied to those at risk of crossing the border. She wants Northern Irish companies that do not export to be free to choose British or European standards. It offers Brussels unprecedented real-time access to the British customs database.
At the same time, the Foreign Minister wants to change absurdly the unilateral agreement, according to which the EU can determine some of the taxes of Northern Ireland and where the final arbiter is the European Court and not a neutral court. These mechanisms could be incorporated into the broader trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU, which would eventually replace the Protocol. After spending a year proposing practical reforms and achieving nothing, Britain is now proposing to make the changes on its own, in a measured and sensitive way.
How will the EU react? Ask a Eurocrat or an MEP and you will get an answer similar to Lear: we will do such things as we still do not know, but they will be the horrors of the Earth! However, the EU’s legal capacity is more limited than many commentators realize. Article 16 explicitly provides for action on the one hand:
“If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, social or environmental difficulties which may persist or to a diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate precautionary measures.
Economic difficulties? The protocol adds perhaps 10 billion British pounds to the price of goods crossing the Irish Sea. Social difficulties? The basis of the Belfast Agreement was the sharing of power on the basis of mutual consent, which the Protocol destroys. Diversion of trade? The decline in GB-NI trade has been matched by a 50% increase in trade across the Irish border.
Britain, in short, has a strong legal basis – much stronger, of course, than the EU was in January 2021, when it briefly referred to Article 16 with the specific aim of imposing an Irish border so that vaccines do not reach the United kingdom. Eurocrats hate to be reminded of this decision and protest that it was quickly overturned. That’s how it was. But they can never again pretend, as they did during the negotiations, that their aim is to maintain stability in Ireland.
Article 16 allows them to “take such proportionate measures to restore the balance as are strictly necessary to remedy the imbalance”. But what imbalance will the EU suffer? Even if we take seriously his claim that the single market will be threatened by the entry of a Tesco chicken sandwich in Donegal, why would that be more likely than now?
In theory, the EU could seek to cancel the entire trade deal with Britain. But that would be a decision for national leaders, most of whom (with the exception of Emmanuel Macron) think it insane to start a trade war with the EU’s biggest customer at a time when their economies are in recession. It is not even clear whether “trade war” is the right term, as there would be no victory for the EU, nothing to leave it better. The main effect of imposing tariffs on British goods would be to raise prices in the EU – a strange thing during an inflation crisis.
Elsewhere, Eurocrats have already fired their ammunition. The UK allows EU financial service providers to operate here under its own regulators, but Brussels refuses to return the service (although it provides the equivalent of, by the way, China). Britain allows EU citizens to use their electronic passport doors, but only our oldest ally, Portugal, has responded. Britain ran the EU’s satellite program, but was frozen by it. And so on.
There may be unilateral French action, legally unrelated to the dispute in question, but politically related. For example, we can see delays on the part of French officials working in Dover under a bilateral deal.
But think about the weather. Britain is taking on most of the hard work of helping Ukraine – not because Russian troops are threatening us, but because we are committed to Europe’s freedom and prosperity. We have just extended our nuclear safeguards to Sweden and Finland, informing them of this dangerous moment between applying to join NATO and joining.
Yet Macron seems much more inclined to reconcile Russia (“We must never succumb to the temptation of humiliation or the spirit of revenge”) than Britain (“Nothing is negotiable, everything is applicable.”)
Is it really possible for the EU to choose this moment to escalate its quarrels with the United Kingdom? That he will limit his trade with Britain while continuing to buy oil and gas from Russia? Certainly not. Because that would mean a calculated end to the Western Union.
Add Comment