It won't come easy....
It could take up to nine years to untangle the U.K. from the EU if Britons vote to leave the bloc on June 23, according to a report by the upper house of the British parliament published Wednesday, reports Politico. Timothy Boswell, chairman of the House of Lords' EU Committee…said although "it's not possible to predict exactly how long [ending EU membership] would take, comparable international trade deals have taken on average between four and nine years":
BREXIT A HUGE RISK FOR SMALL BUSINESS, ITC WARNS: The director of the International Trade Center (ITC), Arancha González, warns that the U.K.'s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) aren't getting enough attention in the event of Brexit. Brexit would cause uncertainty and increase costs, she told Politico Morning Trade, "and SME's are extremely sensitive to both," as they have less flexibility to adapt to those factors than big businesses. Fifty percent of the business that British SMEs conduct is within the EU, equivalent to £365 billion a year. Shez slammed the Leave campaign's argument that by being alone, Brits could get better trade deals with fewer commitments or payments. "I've been a trade negotiator for 20 years," she said. "No way you pay less and get more":
Of a group of 55 leading financial industry figures, policymakers, economists and advisers assembled by Politico, 91 percent said Brexit would weaken the City of London, 85 percent said it would slow growth across the EU and the U.K.; most think continental Europe is ready to pounce on London's financial services advantage if Brits vote for Brexit. Participants took a dim view of Boris Johnson, the pro-Brexit mayor of London, with more than three-quarters labeling his contribution poor or very poor:
KKR & Co., a New York-based private-equity firm with $126 billion of assets, said it won't make an acquisition of a British company before the country votes on whether to leave the European Union because of uncertainty about the outcome. Exiting would be "dire" for the British economy, Johannes Huth, the European head of the firm, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:
UK government overestimated migrant benefit claims: According to an Oxford University study, which uses more recent figures, reports Politico Morning Exchange:
France would seize on the opportunity of a Brexit to impose protective tariffs, Pascal Lamy, ex-director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), said, reports Politico Morning Trade: picking up a report in Mail Online. French farmers would be "eager" to stop British beef and lamb reaching their supermarket shelves, he added:
There is no doubt that UK manufacturing and wider business is best served by being in the EU, and by continuing to be influential in defining the future direction of the framework conditions for manufacturing companies in the bloc, writes Adrian Harris, director general of Orgalime, the European engineering industries association, in an op-ed in EurActiv:
JOBLESS RATE TO KEEP FALLING: That's the official EU prediction in its spring economic forecasts, reports Politico. [If it's] right, the jobless rate will drop to 8.5 percent in 2017, continuing down from 9.4 percent in 2015:
Negotiators of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed tonight on the first EU-wide rules to make the websites and mobile apps of public sector bodies more accessible, especially for the blind, the deaf and the hard of hearing. See the Commission's press release here:
[European] Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans claimed on Monday (2 May) that the EU was a world leader in trade transparency, as he called for a compulsory register of lobbyists in Brussels, EurActiv reports: www.euractiv.com/…/transparency-is-needed-to-reconn…/
The EU's refugee relocation scheme, to be formally launched today, will have expensive financial penalties for non-participants, reports Politico. If the proposal becomes law, the EU country in which migrants first set foot would have to process asylum claims, but could send the migrants elsewhere for a fee. That could cost countries as much as €250,000 per asylum seeker, according to media reports:
The European Commission is set to torpedo CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd.'s planned deal to buy British mobile operator O2 for around $14 billion, two people familiar with the matter said, as EU regulators take a hardened approach toward telecom consolidation, reports the Wall Street Journal:
EU laws requiring member states to use "at least 10%" renewable energy in transport will be scrapped after 2020, the European Commission confirmed, hoping to set aside a protracted controversy surrounding the environmental damage caused by biofuels, reports EurActiv. The European Commission will table a revision of the Renewable Energy Directive at the end of 2016, aiming to further push renewable sources like wind and solar across the European Union:
The EU and Philippines agreed late last week on dates for their first negotiations round for a free trade agreement, which will be held in Brussels from May 23-27, reports Politico Morning Trade:
For an unflattering portrayal of Boris Johnson's Brexit campaign, read an op-ed by Tanya Gold in the New York Times here:
Courtesy of Peter Morris, European Movement in the North East