How do we think EU negotiations will go?

[anonymous-user]

don4l said:

I've just read that we don't actually have any trade negotiators.

From what I read yesterday, it's not quite that bad, but not far off. We have about 20. All of whom are seconded to the EU, because we haven't had to negotiate a trade deal since we joined the EEC.

We need about 500. According to Mrs Nick Clegg, who does this work for a living, 500 working flat out for about ten years would get us the trade deals we'd need.

And trade deal negotiating is highly complex, highly specialised, and (unsurprisingly) an area where prior experience really counts for a lot.

And, of course, it follows that everyone we'd be negotiating against has experienced trade negotiators.

Whether we have any expertise in the private (legal) sector we could call on I don't know. Apparently NZ has offered to lend (read: hire) us its trade negotiators, which will no doubt help, but it looks like we've walked onto a battlefield armed with a tweed jacket.

[Sway]

Greg66 said:

don4l said:

I've just read that we don't actually have any trade negotiators.

From what I read yesterday, it's not quite that bad, but not far off. We have about 20. All of whom are seconded to the EU, because we haven't had to negotiate a trade deal since we joined the EEC.

We need about 500. According to Mrs Nick Clegg, who does this work for a living, 500 working flat out for about ten years would get us the trade deals we'd need.

And trade deal negotiating is highly complex, highly specialised, and (unsurprisingly) an area where prior experience really counts for a lot.

And, of course, it follows that everyone we'd be negotiating against has experienced trade negotiators.

Whether we have any expertise in the private (legal) sector we could call on I don't know. Apparently NZ has offered to lend (read: hire) us its trade negotiators, which will no doubt help, but it looks like we've walked onto a battlefield armed with a tweed jacket.

Should we have walked away from the choice, because the path taken based on that choice is difficult?

As said, EFTA is happy for us to rejoin. They've got several ready made trade deals we'd adopt immediately, including with the EU (although I acknowledge the concern regarding FS passporting, which isn't included).

The other thing to bear in mind, is that we're not starting from scratch - far from it. A hell of a lot of the challenge of a trade deal is commonality of standards etc., this has already been done for the vast majority of the countries we'd be keen to gain a FTA with - as currently we have a FTA with them! Merely (and I know it's not quite as straightforward as that) cut'n'pasting the current agreement that has 'country X and the EU' and find'n'replacing the EU for the UK is a bloody good foundation to start...

[anonymous-user]

Fittster said:

Greg66 said:

Mrr T said:

You are missing the big one. Any exit plan which loses EU financial services passport will be a disaster for a sector employing more than 2m people. The job loses and fall in tax revenue will have a major impact on the UK economy.

A £65bn effect according to figures I saw yesterday.

Still, we have £10bn back, and sovereignty, so let's all be positive!

Where's the grim face emoticon?

I thought rebalancing the UK economy away from domination by Financial Services was a government objective. They are just going down a different route to achieve that goal.

Fine, but if you take £65bn off one side of the scales, you'd better have something bigger than £10bn to replace it. Otherwise "rebalance" becomes "unbalance".

[Fittster]

Greg66 said:

Fittster said:

Greg66 said:

Mrr T said:

You are missing the big one. Any exit plan which loses EU financial services passport will be a disaster for a sector employing more than 2m people. The job loses and fall in tax revenue will have a major impact on the UK economy.

A £65bn effect according to figures I saw yesterday.

Still, we have £10bn back, and sovereignty, so let's all be positive!

Where's the grim face emoticon?

I thought rebalancing the UK economy away from domination by Financial Services was a government objective. They are just going down a different route to achieve that goal.

Fine, but if you take £65bn off one side of the scales, you'd better have something bigger than £10bn to replace it. Otherwise "rebalance" becomes "unbalance".

If all sections of industry are broken doesn't that count as balanced?

[anonymous-user]

Sway said:

Should we have walked away from the choice, because the path taken based on that choice is difficult?

As said, EFTA is happy for us to rejoin. They've got several ready made trade deals we'd adopt immediately, including with the EU (although I acknowledge the concern regarding FS passporting, which isn't included).

The other thing to bear in mind, is that we're not starting from scratch - far from it. A hell of a lot of the challenge of a trade deal is commonality of standards etc., this has already been done for the vast majority of the countries we'd be keen to gain a FTA with - as currently we have a FTA with them! Merely (and I know it's not quite as straightforward as that) cut'n'pasting the current agreement that has 'country X and the EU' and find'n'replacing the EU for the UK is a bloody good foundation to start...

It may be a good place for us to start, but not for our negotiating counterparties.

The EU trade deals are based on the counterparty having access to a market of 500m people (or whatever the EU population is - I think that's close enough) producing a massive range of goods.

The counterparty is likely to want to tip the balance of the agreement more towards its interests if negotiating with a market of 65m people producing a narrower range of goods.

And that's when we will need the negotiators.

I don't think it is a case of "walk away because too difficult"; I think the scope of the task has been massively undersold/underestimated (depending on your level of cynicism) and we are woefully unprepared for what we have to do. My guess is that to get properly prepared would have taken years - not months or weeks. From what I have read trade negotiations are 80% preparation and 20% negotiation.

[Dr Jekyll]

Greg66 said:

From what I read yesterday, it's not quite that bad, but not far off. We have about 20. All of whom are seconded to the EU, because we haven't had to negotiate a trade deal since we joined the EEC.

We need about 500. According to Mrs Nick Clegg, who does this work for a living, 500 working flat out for about ten years would get us the trade deals we'd need.

And trade deal negotiating is highly complex, highly specialised, and (unsurprisingly) an area where prior experience really counts for a lot.

And, of course, it follows that everyone we'd be negotiating against has experienced trade negotiators.

Whether we have any expertise in the private (legal) sector we could call on I don't know. Apparently NZ has offered to lend (read: hire) us its trade negotiators, which will no doubt help, but it looks like we've walked onto a battlefield armed with a tweed jacket.

We never NEED trade deals, the point about Brexit is that it allows us to develop deals with countries the EU doesn't have deals with. It's an opportunity not a threat.

[anonymous-user]

Dr Jekyll said:

We never NEED trade deals, the point about Brexit is that it allows us to develop deals with countries the EU doesn't have deals with. It's an opportunity not a threat.

Umm, no. The point about Brexit is that we will have trade deals with no one. We will have the "opportunity" to negotiate trade deals with everyone.

Read up about trade deals and why countries have them. I admit that I didn't really understand why they existed. I do now.

[Dr Jekyll]

Greg66 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

We never NEED trade deals, the point about Brexit is that it allows us to develop deals with countries the EU doesn't have deals with. It's an opportunity not a threat.

Umm, no. The point about Brexit is that we will have trade deals with no one. We will have the "opportunity" to negotiate trade deals with everyone.

Read up about trade deals and why countries have them. I admit that I didn't really understand why they existed. I do now.

Tell me where I'm wrong.

[anonymous-user]

Dr Jekyll said:

Greg66 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

We never NEED trade deals, the point about Brexit is that it allows us to develop deals with countries the EU doesn't have deals with. It's an opportunity not a threat.

Umm, no. The point about Brexit is that we will have trade deals with no one. We will have the "opportunity" to negotiate trade deals with everyone.

Read up about trade deals and why countries have them. I admit that I didn't really understand why they existed. I do now.

Tell me where I'm wrong.

I just did.

[Dr Jekyll]

Greg66 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Greg66 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

We never NEED trade deals, the point about Brexit is that it allows us to develop deals with countries the EU doesn't have deals with. It's an opportunity not a threat.

Umm, no. The point about Brexit is that we will have trade deals with no one. We will have the "opportunity" to negotiate trade deals with everyone.

Read up about trade deals and why countries have them. I admit that I didn't really understand why they existed. I do now.

Tell me where I'm wrong.

I just did.

BREXIT means we will be able to negotiate deals with countries the EU doesn't have trade deals with. is this wrong?

Or am I wrong in saying that being able to negotiate such deals is an opportunity?

[zbc]

Dr Jekyll said:

Greg66 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Greg66 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

We never NEED trade deals, the point about Brexit is that it allows us to develop deals with countries the EU doesn't have deals with. It's an opportunity not a threat.

Umm, no. The point about Brexit is that we will have trade deals with no one. We will have the "opportunity" to negotiate trade deals with everyone.

Read up about trade deals and why countries have them. I admit that I didn't really understand why they existed. I do now.

Tell me where I'm wrong.

I just did.

BREXIT means we will be able to negotiate deals with countries the EU doesn't have trade deals with. is this wrong?

Or am I wrong in saying that being able to negotiate such deals is an opportunity?

Of course we can but what you seem to be missing is that we will also need to negotiate deals with all the countries that the EU has trade deals with. If we leave the EU we are no longer party to those deals.

[Dr Jekyll]

zbc said:

Of course we can but what you seem to be missing is that we will also need to negotiate deals with all the countries that the EU has trade deals with. If we leave the EU we are no longer party to those deals.

But of our 10 biggest trading partners outside the EU, the EU only has trade deals with 2 of them. Surely being able to strike deals with the other 8 is a good thing.

[zbc]

Dr Jekyll said:

zbc said:

Of course we can but what you seem to be missing is that we will also need to negotiate deals with all the countries that the EU has trade deals with. If we leave the EU we are no longer party to those deals.

But of our 10 biggest trading partners outside the EU, the EU only has trade deals with 2 of them. Surely being able to strike deals with the other 8 is a good thing.

It is and I said it is but we will have NO trade deals when we leave the EU. We have to start from nothing. Even if the EU is declining as a percentage of total world GDP they are still our largest trading partner so we would have to do something with them and in theory it would be easier (though not necessarily easy) to do deals with people who already have deals with the EU as there would be a degree of copy/paste. Given the severe lack of skilled negotiators we would have initially it would seem most sensible to focus them first on the EU and secondly on countries where we might get a quick return.

[XM5ER]

Robertj21a said:

Agreed, very similar to what I said a few posts earlier. It's the other 27 who are likely to get frustrated with the timescale, particularly when they all know that only the UK can decide when to submit the Article 50 papers. We have some excellent, easily understood, reasons for not rushing:-

- the first time it's happened
- need to get it right, for UK
- need to get it right, 'for our friends in Europe'
- political vacuum with loss of PM/election
- political vacuum with loss of credible opposition leader/election

It's highly likely that our inaction (or at best slow, cautious, action) over Section 50 will frustrate at least a few of the other 27 when they find that their on-going EU business is stifled by uncertainty. Although we don't need to upset any of them, we do need to protect ourselves in any negotiations - you start negotiations from your strongest point, not as a meek and mild subordinate.

My guess is that there will soon be more comments from some of the 27 trying to push us into faster action - to which we will give a standard politician's response. A short while later the same issues will rise again, probably with a sound bite from Juncker/Task. We should then remind them how important it is, for us and the EU, to get it right first time - and that '.....it may take until the New Year before we submit S50'. At that point the EU/Merkel will go ballistic about the impact we're having on the whole EU community. We can then say that our timescale could be shortened if there was some framework agreement over our exit plans.

This/\/\. I hope.

[Fittster]

XM5ER said:

Robertj21a said:

Agreed, very similar to what I said a few posts earlier. It's the other 27 who are likely to get frustrated with the timescale, particularly when they all know that only the UK can decide when to submit the Article 50 papers. We have some excellent, easily understood, reasons for not rushing:-

- the first time it's happened
- need to get it right, for UK
- need to get it right, 'for our friends in Europe'
- political vacuum with loss of PM/election
- political vacuum with loss of credible opposition leader/election

It's highly likely that our inaction (or at best slow, cautious, action) over Section 50 will frustrate at least a few of the other 27 when they find that their on-going EU business is stifled by uncertainty. Although we don't need to upset any of them, we do need to protect ourselves in any negotiations - you start negotiations from your strongest point, not as a meek and mild subordinate.

My guess is that there will soon be more comments from some of the 27 trying to push us into faster action - to which we will give a standard politician's response. A short while later the same issues will rise again, probably with a sound bite from Juncker/Task. We should then remind them how important it is, for us and the EU, to get it right first time - and that '.....it may take until the New Year before we submit S50'. At that point the EU/Merkel will go ballistic about the impact we're having on the whole EU community. We can then say that our timescale could be shortened if there was some framework agreement over our exit plans.

This/\/\. I hope.

How come you don't expect any pressure on the UK politicians from people who voted leave but don't see any change? If we are to 'take control' then the UK government needs to start working on Article 50, otherwise the referendum is in effect being ignored

[s2art]

zbc said:

Of course we can but what you seem to be missing is that we will also need to negotiate deals with all the countries that the EU has trade deals with. If we leave the EU we are no longer party to those deals.

Not true. We are co-signitories to those deals. All it needs is a nod from those Countries and a rubber stamp at the UN.

[Gandahar]

Fittster said:

XM5ER said:

Robertj21a said:

Agreed, very similar to what I said a few posts earlier. It's the other 27 who are likely to get frustrated with the timescale, particularly when they all know that only the UK can decide when to submit the Article 50 papers. We have some excellent, easily understood, reasons for not rushing:-

- the first time it's happened
- need to get it right, for UK
- need to get it right, 'for our friends in Europe'
- political vacuum with loss of PM/election
- political vacuum with loss of credible opposition leader/election

It's highly likely that our inaction (or at best slow, cautious, action) over Section 50 will frustrate at least a few of the other 27 when they find that their on-going EU business is stifled by uncertainty. Although we don't need to upset any of them, we do need to protect ourselves in any negotiations - you start negotiations from your strongest point, not as a meek and mild subordinate.

My guess is that there will soon be more comments from some of the 27 trying to push us into faster action - to which we will give a standard politician's response. A short while later the same issues will rise again, probably with a sound bite from Juncker/Task. We should then remind them how important it is, for us and the EU, to get it right first time - and that '.....it may take until the New Year before we submit S50'. At that point the EU/Merkel will go ballistic about the impact we're having on the whole EU community. We can then say that our timescale could be shortened if there was some framework agreement over our exit plans.

This/\/\. I hope.

How come you don't expect any pressure on the UK politicians from people who voted leave but don't see any change? If we are to 'take control' then the UK government needs to start working on Article 50, otherwise the referendum is in effect being ignored

People are more concerned about ££ than timelines I am sure, and getting it right??

[Gandahar]

How many people in the UK have gone out on the street protesting about no Article 50 immediately ?

None.

[anonymous-user]

s2art said:

zbc said:

Of course we can but what you seem to be missing is that we will also need to negotiate deals with all the countries that the EU has trade deals with. If we leave the EU we are no longer party to those deals.

Not true. We are co-signitories to those deals. All it needs is a nod from those Countries and a rubber stamp at the UN.

Why would those countries give us the nod though?

They've signed up to a deal with the EU that gives them access to a market of 500m people and the full range of goods offered by all the EU countries.

We have 65m people and a subset of those goods. Different deal, surely.

[s2art]

Greg66 said:

s2art said:

zbc said:

Of course we can but what you seem to be missing is that we will also need to negotiate deals with all the countries that the EU has trade deals with. If we leave the EU we are no longer party to those deals.

Not true. We are co-signitories to those deals. All it needs is a nod from those Countries and a rubber stamp at the UN.

Why would those countries give us the nod though?

They've signed up to a deal with the EU that gives them access to a market of 500m people and the full range of goods offered by all the EU countries.

We have 65m people and a subset of those goods. Different deal, surely.

Because the UK is a good market for them. We buy/import lots of stuff they want to sell.