Anyone with more than a passing interest in Brexit will probably have gathered by now that things aren’t going particularly smoothly, with scarcely a day going by without an industry bemoaning the impact it’s having on their business.
It’s perhaps little surprise, therefore that a recent report suggests that the UK is ill-prepared to assume responsibility for key aspects of regulation after leaving the European Union on the 1st January. What’s more, the authors also believe that the UK lacks the physical or IT infrastructure to successfully manage the new relationship with the EU and is instead relying on transitional arrangements to make things work.
The report, which was produced by UK in a Changing Europe, the Centre for Competition Policy, and Brexit & Environment, reveals the work still needed in order to make the new Brexit arrangements function.
A long road ahead
“Brexit isn’t ‘done’, you cannot unwind over 40 years of legal, political, economic, social and cultural integration in a few short months, but the UK’s relationship with our nearest neighbours has fundamentally changed,” the authors say.
“It’s critical for us to draw on social science expertise to track the effects of these changes for our country. This report provides a baseline for us to measure against going forward.”
For instance, the UK left the EU’s European Environment Agency, but the UK Office for Environmental Protection hasn’t opened yet, therefore leaving the UK without any body designed to ensure compliance with environmental law.
Ill-equipped
The authors argue that the UK authorities that are designed to replace their EU counterparts are largely ill-equipped to do so, not least due to a lack of staffing and insufficient budget. They also lack the powers to effectively inspect and enforce, while also suffering from a loss of data in areas such as policing and border control.
There are also evident concerns around costs, not least because of the need to duplicate functions previously performed by EU bodies. It’s inevitably a tall order to expect the UK to replicate bodies whose costs were previously spread across 28 different nations.
What’s more, businesses wanting to operate in both the UK and the EU will need to undergo the same bureaucracy twice, which will add an estimated £1 billion to their cost of doing business.
“Health is a crucial area where Brexit has a significant impact, not least because we are no longer involved in the European Medicines Agency, which checks and certifies new medicines for all EU countries,” the researchers say.
“Our research shows Brexit will pose long-term challenges for standards of medicines in the UK. However, in this report we also show the UK government is looking for alternative international collaborations to achieve common standards in medicine regulations, for example by partnering with Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Singapore in the so-called ‘Access Consortium’.”
Unfinished business
The report highlights the significant amount of unfinished business still left to resolve. For instance, customs currently enjoy a grace period within which both EU and UK officials need to reach an agreement, while there are other transitional arrangements that remain undecided.
The decision to leave the European Union, and therefore the customs union and single market, was done in large part in order to secure regulatory freedom and autonomy at all costs, but in reality, this will not see any significant divergence for some time as the agencies and resources to do so don’t exist.
As such, the UK remains tightly bound by the terms agreed in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and with trade with the EU still so important for the country will be bound by EU norms for some time to come, not least in areas where the EU is a global standard setter.
