New report on Brexit: From Customs Union to Customs Arrangement

The grassroot movement EFTA4UK has today published a new report: From Customs Union to Customs Arrangement. Exiting the EUs Customs Union.

The report references my SmartBorder 2.0 report and the work I have done on SmartBorder develoment.

EFTA4UK writes,

The UK will certainly leave the European Union’s Customs Union. This is an incontrovertible fact of leaving the European Union.

Participation in the EU Customs Union (EUCU) is factually only available to EU member states.

• It is possible however, to enter into ‘a’ customs union with the EU, something the UK should pursue in the short term; in fact, this is current Government policy.

• Once the UK has left the EU and the necessary preparations and negotiations have been made, the UK and EU should mutually terminate the transitional EU-UK customs union and replace it with an advanced EU-UK Customs arrangement; which would allow for near-frictionless trade and mean no hard border on the Island of Ireland. This would also allow the UK to strike new FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) around the globe.

By definition, being in a customs union places restriction on UK trade policy.

Symbolically remaining in the/a customs union with the EU would be unacceptable to those parliamentarians and members of the public who seek to ‘take back control’ from the EU.

It would therefore be unsustainable for the UK to remain in a customs union with the European Union in the long term. We should therefore use the transition period to negotiate a new bilateral bespoke customs arrangement between UK and EU.

This would be made up of:

• New technologies and systems (as outlined by Mr Maesson and Mr Karlsson) combined with international best practice as recommended by the WCO.

• Negotiated access to the REX system.

• A new protocol to be added to the EEA agreement specifically relating to NI/ROI trade, with the creation of a new joint committee to oversee border issues.

• All parties upholding their commitments and duties under existing international agreements.

You can read the report here:

EFTA4UK Report: From Customs Union to Customs Arrangement. Exiting the EUs Customs Union