CETA dead? Whom should be more worried, UK or Eurozone?

[stongle]

With deadlock ongoing with Wallonia preventing signing of CETA, could this a bigger issue for the Eurozones ability to actually ever deliver anything; or a more worrying prophecy of what is to come for the UK. There will never be a deal.

Even more worrying is that David Davis thought CETA would be a model the UK would work on.

Even if pragmatism breaks out this time, we could be well and truly rodded. What if we don't bother to negotiate, just save the money and errrr give to the NHS?

[stongle]

PurpleMoonlight said:

I'm not convinced by that.

Someone here has explained and I saw it on the news yesterday.

The qualified majority under A50 only relates to our exit terms from the EU. Any trade deal that is effected simultaneously or thereafter would need unanimous agreement.

This was the point I was aiming at. Any trade deal needs unanimous agreement. Anyone citing that a post Brexit deal could be done easily or even pragmatically needs their bonce tested. I think this was one of the biggest issues at the heart of the brexit campaign - a deal could be blocked by any federalist state or country.

Canada, Norway lite etc is a fantasy - we should stop the pretence.

The longer we are in the process, the more likely we are too tire of the procrastination. The actual post Brexit reality is going to be different to what was imagined pre June 23rd. What is interesting is contrary to the Beeb and the doom and gloom re the city, one bank is in the process of moving 100 staff out of Brussels to London. Coincidence or a smart hedge against the coming chaos?

Edited by stongle on Tuesday 25th October 10:27

[stongle]

jsf said:

The way it works is slightly different to the above.

During the Art50 negotiations, which is voted on with qualified Majority voting, trade arrangements can be agreed as part of the severance package.

Once that deal is done, any further changes or new trade arrangements then have to go through the normal EU procedures, which it appears, can be bodged by the EU depending on what mood they are in.

For example they chose to have all the EU governments and their local bodies ratify the Canada-EU deal, they could have ignored the Walloon regional government had they decided on that at the start. They chose to include regional government because they thought it was politically prudent to do so.

So, in summary, Art50 can cover trade arrangements, it can pretty much include anything, but once that is signed we then have any future deals with the EU via their chosen method, which is usually full approval of all 27 on the commission.

What will also become more prevalent in the future is we will also be able to benefit from any changes made to the WTO rules with the EU, the trajectory for that is to further open up the EU to third party access for finance and service providers.

Thanks for clarification, I was of the opinion it was a Belgium specific constitutional obligation. However, I struggle to see how article 50 will include a trade deal given the time it takes to agree one - unless previously unseen pragmatism and common sense breaks out in both UK Parliament and the EU. If the UK gets trade deal lite out of article 50, but falls short on the likes of MiFID2 and Passporting which becomes subject to a vote of the 27; is a bad result for the UK.