Crédito y Caución | The UK’s foreign trade remains scarce, and the main sectors of its economy are suffering from rising costs, more complex bureaucracy, and labour shortages. Five years ago, Brexit marked the beginning of a new era for Great Britain. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement introduced new regulatory barriers and customs controls with the European Union, but also the theoretical possibility of a British economy free to trade…
Samantha North | Freedom of movement in Europe was always something I took for granted. I saw Europe as part of our heritage, despite the grumblings of euroskeptics and sly articles in the British press about the perils of straight bananas and the metric system. Perhaps the EU is an “imagined community” too. But countries working together, no matter how flawed the process, is the only route we have to improving the world. It’s a project I’m determined to be part of.
Luis Alcaide | A British parliamentary spokesman and former development minister, Andrew Mitchell, has declared it in no uncertain terms: “The UK is losing its reputation as a credible jurisdiction. Our (British) companies have become vehicles for the laundering of money. The vulgarity of the internal market, the weakness of regulations and the pathetic response to organised crime are being used to facilitate all kinds of misdemeanours. Many EU Europeans…
The British Embassy in Madrid has revealed that 150,000 Britons living in Spain have been issued with a TIE card since it was introduced in July last year. As Fiona Govan explains in The Olive Press: Brexit meant the Green certificates available to citizens of EU member states would no longer be issued to Brits entitled to residency in Spain. Those who had yet to apply for residency were encouraged…
Half a decade after the UK voted to leave the EU, Schroders experts Sue Noffke, Rory Bateman and Azad Zangana examine the investment case for the UK stock market.
David Collins via The Conversation | The terms “Australian-style” or “Canadian-style” Brexit are meant to convey to the British public the kind of trade relationship they can expect with the EU if no preferential free trade agreement (FTA) is concluded between the UK and the EU at the end of the transition period. They are a short-hand way of telling the public that it is perfectly normal not to be a member of the EU or Single Market, because both Australia and Canada manage this and remain functional and amicable trading partners with the EU.
The -2.5% underperformance of UK real GDP growth relative to OECD countries over the last 4 years (to 31/12/2019) clearly signals the damaging impact Brexit has had on business confidence. Brexit uncertainty has led to slower investment, with firms instead building up cash buffers from ~16% up to ~19% of GDP. The opportunity cost of this saving is the slower rate of GDP growth experienced.
In 2019, 50% of the imports and 47% of the exports were traded with the EU27, which makes the EU27 market the UK’s largest trading partner. In 2006, both, the shares of UK exports and imports to the EU27, were at the maximum level; since then both shares are on a general downward trend, the exports more than the imports. Since the referendum in 2016, the exposure to the EU27 market did not significantly change from the perspective of the UK. Hence, especially as a supplier, the EU27 matter for the UK. For the EU27, the UK is much less important as a trading partner: in 2019, only 4% of total exports go to the UK and 6% of the total imports are from the UK, respectively. While the trade shares decrease between 2001 and 2007, they remain relatively stable thereafter. Since the referendum in 2016, we have seen a slight decrease in the trade shares with the UK.
UK’s equity market has trailed Europe’s considerably this year. The UK’s FTSE 100 Index is down over 20% while Euro Stoxx 600 Index is down just over 11% year-to-date in sterling and euros respectively. If we compare the two in Euros, the UK fares even worse on account of Sterling’s weakness relative to the Euro – another sign of the UK being hurt more by the risk of Brexit disruption and uncertainty.
Peter Isackson | The Guardian offered its readers what is certainly the most comic and hyperreal sentence of the week when it reported that “Boris Johnson accused the EU of preparing to go to ‘extreme and unreasonable lengths’ in Brexit talks as he defended breaching international law amid a mounting rebellion from Tory backbenchers.”