Post by account_disabled on Feb 27, 2024 0:05:00 GMT -5
The conditions for fishing rights, trade in electric vehicles and access to the financial sector will have to be updated in the coming years. And that's just what is programmed into the existing agreements. With Horizon established, attention in the British political debate continues to turn to the broader future of the EU-UK relationship. The looming question is how (and when) the surprising pro-European turn in British public opinion will trigger new policy options. Contrast this with the silence in the EU and its member countries about what the next steps with the UK might be. Silence is not strategic; It's just not a question anyone is thinking about, for several excellent reasons. One is that there is no point in thinking about it without a fundamental change in UK policy. Perhaps a Labor government led by Sir Keir Starmer will seek a closer form of partnership, despite his efforts to make voters believe otherwise.
Until then, the EU has nothing to decide beyond managing the relationship, as it is. Furthermore, the EU has more important matters to attend to. Russia's attack on Ukraine and its energy war against Europe, relations Jordan Mobile Number List with China, the green transition and other priorities take a difficult but mostly harmless neighbor off the list. While the bloc's own concerns justify this relative neglect, they are still going to transform what we might call the British EU question, in radical if unintended ways. What the EU does for reasons unrelated to the UK nevertheless has implications for the bloc's future relations with Britain. And they are worth taking note of, not least because they may include previously excluded opportunities. The political need to bring Ukraine closer to the EU, and ultimately to it, has opened up issues that were firmly closed while the UK was in the exit process.
Remember Brexit tsar Michel Barnier’s “ladder” of available relationships? EU leaders are now seriously considering much more “progressive” (i.e. finely graded) forms of partnership, although this thinking applies to countries heading into the EU and not those leaving it. Many ask, for example, whether Ukraine or other candidates could enjoy some benefits of membership before joining fully. I have argued before that it makes a lot of sense for Ukraine to join the European Free Trade Association and, through it, the European Economic Area (which essentially means the single market) as a step towards EU membership. But it may take time to persuade all EU countries to accept permanent free movement for some 40 million Ukrainians. An obvious solution is to first open the free movement of goods, services and capital.
Until then, the EU has nothing to decide beyond managing the relationship, as it is. Furthermore, the EU has more important matters to attend to. Russia's attack on Ukraine and its energy war against Europe, relations Jordan Mobile Number List with China, the green transition and other priorities take a difficult but mostly harmless neighbor off the list. While the bloc's own concerns justify this relative neglect, they are still going to transform what we might call the British EU question, in radical if unintended ways. What the EU does for reasons unrelated to the UK nevertheless has implications for the bloc's future relations with Britain. And they are worth taking note of, not least because they may include previously excluded opportunities. The political need to bring Ukraine closer to the EU, and ultimately to it, has opened up issues that were firmly closed while the UK was in the exit process.
Remember Brexit tsar Michel Barnier’s “ladder” of available relationships? EU leaders are now seriously considering much more “progressive” (i.e. finely graded) forms of partnership, although this thinking applies to countries heading into the EU and not those leaving it. Many ask, for example, whether Ukraine or other candidates could enjoy some benefits of membership before joining fully. I have argued before that it makes a lot of sense for Ukraine to join the European Free Trade Association and, through it, the European Economic Area (which essentially means the single market) as a step towards EU membership. But it may take time to persuade all EU countries to accept permanent free movement for some 40 million Ukrainians. An obvious solution is to first open the free movement of goods, services and capital.