Prime Minister Boris Johnson has won again and, as the legendary English Santa Claus, brought a Christmas gift from Brussels to Merry Brexmas! and laws.
In recent years, the British dispute with the EU has been somewhat obscured by comments on complicated negotiations that seemed like an attempt to quadrature the circle: how could the Union’s customs and regulatory regime have a free market with a European outsider? Behind the business haggling was the conflict of two political worldviews, is it better for humanity a transnational empire with an unelected caretaker government, or an order of independent nation-states?
Johnson’s government made it virtually impossible to negotiate sovereignty, and for eleven months the negotiations did not move.
How could it not, when the Union assumed, after the experience with Prime Minister May, that the English were forced by EU rules, including economic and social policy, which covered thousands of issues related to taxes, subsidies, government investment, but also transport, sanitation, labor code, etc. remain a vassal in the integration system of the protection bloc, similar to the states of the former EFTA (European Free Trade Association) and pay hard for market access.
The Union only recognizes Member States, protectorates, applicants for membership and enemies at borders. Britain’s request for a free duty-free and unconditional market represents a breakthrough in the EU’s ideology. As French Minister for Europe Clément Beaune said recently: “It would be a big mistake to want to satisfy those who want to leave, because we are not just a common market, the Union is a political project and being inside or outside is simply not the same.” President Macron also considers the Union a French project and “Britain is dangerously close” (so that it can be independent).
The French were supposed to prefer a disagreement and sacrifice 12 billion of their trade surplus. Until the last moment before Christmas, free trade negotiations without restrictions and tariffs seemed to be going nowhere, and at the end of the year (the English refused to extend) the threat of a collapse of a huge mutual exchange of goods (650 billion euros) arose. And what the hell didn’t want, covid-19 hit, the French president tightened the quarantine at the border and apparently inadvertently prevented drivers from returning home for Christmas.
An aerial view of several thousand trucks parked by the English at Kent’s military airport must have frightened Europeans. Is this what future relations with the island should look like? We do not know if something broke behind the scenes and the Germans did not go to the French, who did not want to lose their “treasure island”, because they have a monumental surplus in the trade balance, only the car industry exports 19 percent of its huge exports to Britain.
Considering how powerful the trade cartel is the Union (not to mention the integration ideology) and how afraid of a strong competitor at its frontier, we must give Johnson an unexpected and extraordinary success.
He won with uncompromising tactics, although he had a preliminary agreement on his predecessor on the terms of withdrawal from the EU, which would theoretically not allow today’s treaty. Contrary to the terms signed, the British government has enacted control of its internal market and signed a free trade agreement with several dozen states.
His classical education certainly played a role in Johnson’s diplomacy, after all, he wrote the book The Roman Dream about the ancient Romans. “You want peace, prepare for war.” He understood that he would not negotiate anything good, and he bet everything on the principle of sovereignty, which was the main issue in the referendum, and thus pushed the EU negotiators into a corner. They had to seek a compromise in negotiations on specific goods only on the principle of equal partnership, while they still sought pre-determined restrictive rules. And during eleven months of hopeless negotiations, the British government was indeed preparing to leave without an agreement that it did not want, but that Johnson’s voters would forgive. The question is how the chaos at the borders and the economic damage caused by the ideologues of the Union, unable to agree pragmatically, would be viewed by the public in the Union.
And so in five minutes twelve a compromise was reached, and although the negotiated treaty is not friendly to Britain, the 1246 unexplored parties show great distrust and unpleasant details to curb the competitive advantages of free economic policy The so-called “dynamics of divergence” (gradual departure from EU rules) is possible under difficult conditions, possibly even retaliatory duties and independent arbitration.
Unpleasant for the British is the restriction of fishing in territorial waters (22 km), they gained only 25 percent, but the annual negotiations are to gradually increase the share over five years. There has been no agreement on financial services in which they have an advantage and the City of London’s services are likely to become more expensive for continents. The free exchange of physical goods is lucrative, especially for the French and Germans, who export the most to Britain, and should continue as before. Britain will pay the Union for its debts (25 billion euros), but mutual assets are likely to equalize and stop paying an annual market access allowance, such as Switzerland and Norway. Some products, such as electric cars, are expected to contain 45 percent of components made in Europe. It will not work without snags, but trade collapse has been avoided by both sides.
It will now be up to the British to use their independence. Sovereignty does not automatically mean prosperity. Only good government allows this.
MfD, 29.12.2020
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