Brexit: What to expect from UK-EU trade talks?

Описание: So this is it. After three messy years negotiating the UK's exit from the EU, Monday is the day that trade talks finally begin between the two sides. https://www.eudebates.tv/tag/brexit/ #eudebates #Brexit #EuropeanParliament #UnitedKingdom #VoteBrexit #BREXITDeal #NoDeal #BrexitDebate #BrexitChaos #tradeDeal
David Frost, the UK's chief negotiator, arrives in Brussels in the afternoon, armed with 100 advisers and civil servants, preparing to spread themselves across 10 working groups, focusing on everything from fishing to financial services to truck drivers' cross-border access.

Negotiations are to take place once every two or three weeks from now until the summer at least, alternating between Brussels and London - with the prime minister insisting a deal must be struck by the year's end.

On the edge of your seat with excitement, are you?

Thought not. But should you be?

OK, even trade buffs admit their area of expertise can be pretty dry and detail-heavy. And it would certainly suit the government if we all looked the other way during these negotiations because trade deals generally include trade-offs. On both sides.

Neither Boris Johnson, nor his predecessor, Theresa May, have been wholly transparent about this with the UK public.

So surely it is of interest to those who voted for Brexit, to keep a keen eye on whether the benefits they've been led to believe will be coming the UK's way for farmers, fishermen and slashing immigration numbers, will now materialise in the way they'd imagined.

And what do both sides - the EU and Boris Johnson's government - want from a trade deal?

Very different things. Which puts negotiations on to a tricky footing from the off.

The EU is after an overarching agreement, covering all aspects of future relations: foreign policy, security co-operation, fish, trade, services, research and development and more. All disputes would be referred to a single arbitration panel. The (Brexiteer-despised) European Court of Justice, the ECJ, would have the final word on aspects touching EU law.

The UK government rejects that idea. The whole point of Brexit, ministers argue, was to reclaim national sovereignty and escape the ECJ.

Boris Johnson wants a free trade deal (similar to the one the EU struck with Canada) with extra agreements (like fishing) on the side, governed by separate dispute resolution mechanisms.

The UK aim here is to avoid "linkage" - where the EU could say, for example: "We won't give you a tariff and quota-free trade deal unless you allow EU fishermen to keep the same access to UK waters as they had before Brexit".

Another big pre-negotiations row has been over the issue of level playing fields. This is where the EU is pressuring the UK to maintain the same or similar standards when it comes to environmental, labour and state aid regulations. Otherwise, European businesses worry that the UK, which already has access to customers across the single market after more than four decades as an EU member, could slash its regulations, undercutting their European competitors with considerably lower prices.

The government grumbles that the EU should have more faith: that the UK has no intention of slashing regulations but that, in any case, the UK didn't go to all the trouble of Brexiting in order to re-tether itself to EU rules.

Those same glaring misunderstandings or miscalculations of the other side, that we became so familiar with in the Brexit negotiations, are back with a vengeance now EU-UK talk turns to trade.

UK chief negotiator David Frost believes the EU still doesn't "get it".

While Theresa May aimed to keep trade as friction-free as possible with the EU after Brexit - in the interest of cross-border business - even though she knew this would mean still adhering to a number of EU regulations, Boris Johnson seems content to countenance the cost, paperwork and delays the UK could incur on exports and imports, in order to break free from Brussels' rules once and for all.

And Mr Frost is right. Many in the EU do think the PM is bluffing. They believe, at the last minute, that Mr Johnson will probably balk at the prospect of negative press being generated by huge lorry queues backing up at Dover and Calais and that he will then agree to match EU regulations in some way.

As evidence, Brussels cites Boris Johnson's "capitulation" in the autumn, when he agreed to something he had sworn he could never accept: a border down the Irish Sea - in order to finally get a Brexit divorce deal signed.

Overall, Mr Johnson's pro-Brexit cabinet believes the EU woefully underestimates their resolve, while Brussels scoffs at Downing Street assertions that the EU needs a trade deal with the UK more than the other way round.

Boris Johnson is keen to kick-off trade talks with the US - though they too promise to be far from straightforward.

Question is: How closely will you be scrutinising the process?