European Union

Kuhn
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
The ‘Brussels Ia’ Regulation is not applicable in determining which Member State’s courts have jurisdiction to rule on claims brought against the Greek State by an individual holding Greek sovereign bonds following their forced exchange in 2012

Opinion on the European Defence fund
Report on Military Mobility
Report on the Common Security and Defence Policy
Report on Human rights and Democracy in the world 2017
Implementation report on the EU association agreement with Ukraine
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Verbraucherzentrale Baden-Württemberg
Transport
Air carriers who do not express air fares for intra-Community flights in euros are required to indicate those fares in a local currency objectively linked to the service offered

Deutsche Telekom v Commission
State aid
The General Court upholds the decisions of the European Commission classifying the Spanish tax scheme for the amortisation of ‘financial’ goodwill as State aid incompatible with the internal market

Plenary - Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Yesterday’s publication of the provisional final text of the Withdrawal Agreement (and associated Political Declaration) marks a crucial point in the process of Brexit, opening the door to an approval and ratification process and the first major step in establishing a new basis for UK-EU relations.

Weighing in at nearly 600 pages of text, it’s easy to get lost in the details, so what basic messages can we extract from it?

Most of this is about the past, not the future…

As the name implies, the Withdrawal Agreement is largely concerned with the ending of the UK’s membership of the EU. That means the tying off of existing arrangements and the creation of interim management structures and processes.

Hence a lot of the text is occupied with marking out what stops and what liabilities remain and require attention. In that latter camp we can find provisions on finances and on citizens (who have been a rather marginal concern in the negotiators’ scheme of things, it has to be said).

In that sense, the main thrust of this is backward-looking and points to the extent of the EU’s entanglement with the UK that now has to be unpicked: bear in mind that this document – lengthy though it is – is dwarfed by the pile of acquis that the UK will have to work through under the mechanisms of the Withdrawal Act.

This might be a source of frustration to the casual observer, who might be forgiven for thinking that all the debate might have produced light on the future direction than the rather bland Political Declaration.

…but what there is on the future will matter

However, that Declaration – with its commitments to work together to maintain cooperation in a wide range of areas – is not the only part of the text that concerns the future.

As has been discussed at very great length, the Withdrawal Agreement also contains provisions on the ‘backstop’ to the Irish dimension.

As anticipated, this now takes the form of a complex protection of the current open border between the two parts of the island of Ireland: should it not be possible to put into effect a comprehensive future trade deal by the end of transition, then a UK-wide customs arrangement will come into effect, with lots of regulatory alignment to ensure that border checks are kept to an absolute minimum. That alignment also reduces the risk to the EU of the UK exploiting its access to the single market by undercutting standards.

If this had been evident for some time, it is important to stress two aspects of this that were less so.

Firstly, the Political Declaration places this customs arrangement in a central position for the future relationship, forming the basis for that comprehensive cooperation. This is likely to cause many headaches for the hard Brexit opponents of the text, given the potential limiting of UK free trade agreements with other countries.

Secondly, while there is now a one-off extension to the transition period, this will still not be long enough to conclude the treaties envisaged in the Declaration. Indeed, it is telling that the published draft doesn’t actually say how long that extension will be (although it’s likely to be one year, given other references in the text), highlighting just how contentious this point will be.

The brevity of transition means that all of the backstop arrangements are very likely to come into effect, raising the stakes for all involved, despite Michael Barnier’s words on the intention never to have to use them.

There will be no simple model of Brexit

Often overlooked in all this is the fact that this stage of Brexit – the ending of UK membership – was always going to be the easier and more contained part. It’s been overlooked mainly because it has been so difficult and sprawling.

But the agenda was very limited in Article 50 negotiations and the options relatively constricted: there were only a small number of ways to handle each of the elements.

By contrast, the future relationship contains multitudes. Each paragraph of the Political Declaration contains possibilities that might run to many hundreds of pages of a future deal, all framed by the same legalese that we find in the current texts.

And this is not very transparent.

Possibly, it’s not meant to be: the burying of the specifics of the backstop is a case in point on the political exigency of not saying too explicitly what you mean.

But for a British public that already has low levels of confidence in the process and the outcomes, such obfuscation can only heighten their sense of disengagement.

It also raises the risks of individuals misrepresenting what this represents: a considered attempt to move to a new post-membership relationship.

It may not be pretty, but for now it is the only text on the table and it cannot and should not be ignored.

The post Three messages from the Withdrawal Agreement appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

OPINION on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the European Defence Fund
Committee on Foreign Affairs
David McAllister

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - Draft opinion on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of the Agreement in the form of an exchange of letters between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco on the amendment of Protocols 1 and 4 to the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement establishing an association between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Kingdom of Morocco, of the other part
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

REPORT on the 2018 Commission Report on Albania
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Knut Fleckenstein

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

REPORT on the 2018 Commission Report on Montenegro
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Charles Tannock

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

REPORT on the 2018 Commission Report on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ivo Vajgl

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Workshop participants

How do new technological developments influence security in Europe? What role do drones, artificial intelligence and social media play in contemporary European society and security? And what to expect from recent trends in European Union’s (EU) security policy such as plans to fund defence research? These were some of the questions addressed at the workshop ‘Science and Technology Studies and the study of Europe’ that took place at University of Bath, UK on 6-7 November 2018.

 

This workshop was organized by the ‘INTERSECT: Technology-Security-Society Interplays in Europe’ research network that promotes academic research and public debate in this novel area on the interplays between technological developments, security practices, and societal changes in Europe. Its focus includes topics such as cybersecurity, surveillance, counter-terrorism and dual-use research and development. Launched in 2017, INTERSECT is one of research networks supported by UACES – The academic association for contemporary European Studies. The workshop was organized in cooperation with the Nordic Centre of Excellence for Security and Technologies and Societal Values (NordSTEVA). This was the second INTERSECT workshop following ‘Rethinking the Technology – Security Nexus in Europe’ last year in Malmö, Sweden.

 

The programme of this thought-provoking two-day workshop in Bath included a range of interrelated theoretical and empirical topics that explored changing technology and security interplay in Europe by combining insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS), European Studies, International Relations as well as other disciplines and research fields. These were presented and discussed by some 20 researchers from all over Europe in three sessions, a keynote address and a concluding roundtable.

 

In the first session, Derek Bolton discussed information warfare in the modern age, while Tom Hobson suggested to use STS concepts of co-production and socio-technical imaginaries to think more critically about relationship between technology and warfare. In light of EU’s recent developments of setting up defence research programme, Jocelyn Mawdsley asked some timely questions about what can be expected from EU defence research funding and what can be learnt from the United States in this respect.

Keynote by Professor Mireille Hildebrandt

In the second session, Brett Edwards presented his forthcoming book ‘Insecurity and Emerging Biotechnology. Governing Misuse Potential’ discussing ethical considerations and security dilemmas related to emerging technologies. Chantal Lavallée explored the EU’s support for the development of drone sector, while Raluca Csernatoni focused on power dynamics in another ‘hot’ dual use technology field, namely, Artificial Intelligence. In her broad-ranging keynote ‘Law, Science, Technology and Security (LSTS) Studies: Legal Protection by Design’, Professor Mireille Hildebrandt addressed numerous conceptual and empirical questions emphasizing the need to scrutinise security technologies and to involve those who will suffer the consequences.

 

In the third and final session, Inga Ulnicane presented on responsible dual use research and changing research funding landscape in the EU that involves support for civilian, dual-use and since recently also defence research. Two final presentations in the workshop showcased research from the European Research Council funded project ‘FOLLOW – Following the Money from Transaction to Trial’. Tasniem Anwar demonstrated how social media activities such as WhatsApp messages have become essential legal evidence in terrorism financing court cases. Her colleague Esmé Bosma explained her research on how private banks use transaction monitoring system to counter terrorism financing.

Inga Ulnicane talking about responsible dual use in the European Union

In the final workshop roundtable, André Barrinha, Kristofer Lidén, Karen Lund Petersen and Bruno Oliveira Martins took stock of and identified future directions in this highly interesting and relevant research and policy area. One of the themes that emerged was the importance of bringing in public in anticipating and evaluating future technologies, their ethical and legal aspects as well as their potential uses in security field. That would democratize and make the process of developing and applying security technologies more transparent. A number of exciting topics and questions for future research and debate were outlined including the need to overcome gendered nature of security and technology fields, to go beyond artificial distinction between politics and economics of technologies in international relations and to address dilemmas such as security versus academic freedom.

 

The post Making sense of changing relationships between technology, security and society in Europe appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Memoria and Dall'Antonia
Freedom of establishment
The Italian legislation prohibiting private companies from performing an activity of safekeeping of cinerary urns is contrary to EU law

Milivojević
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
Advocate General Tanchev proposes that the Court should rule that a national law that allows loan contracts concluded with foreign lenders who were not authorised to provide credit services in that country to be retroactively annulled is contrary to EU law when the same law does not apply to Croatian lenders

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

On Remembrance Sunday we commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts.

November 11, 2018 also marks the 100th anniversary since the end of the First World War, Armistice Day.

Of course, we must never forget those who gave their lives in service to our country. We especially owe a great debt to all those who helped to save this country – and the rest of Europe – from the terrible onslaught of the Nazi regime in the Second World War.

But as well as remembering all those who fought so hard and valiantly during times of war and conflict, we should also remember all those who worked so hard and valiantly to help to avoid wars and conflicts.

The European Economic Community – later to be called the European Union – was started in the aftermath of the Second World War with one purpose and one purpose alone: to avoid wars on our continent ever happening again. (Article continues after 4-minute video).

That was the passionate resolve of those who are regarded as the eleven founders of the European Union, including our own war leader, Winston Churchill.

After all, Europe had a long and bloody history of resolving its differences through war, and indeed, the planet’s two world wars originated right here, on our continent.

So the EU was never just an economic agreement between nations.

It was always also meant to be a social and political union of European nations to enable them to find ways not just to trade together, but to co-exist and co-operate in harmony and peace on many levels as a community of nations.

The goal, in the founding document of the European Union called the Treaty of Rome, was to achieve ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’ (which is rather different to ‘ever closer union of nations’.)

Just one year after the Second World War, in 1946, Winston Churchill made his famous speech in Zurich, Switzerland in which he said:

“We must build a kind of United States of Europe. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important.”

At the time Churchill did not envisage Britain joining the new Union of Europe, but he was later to change his mind.

In March 1957 the European Economic Community (EEC) was established by its six founding nations, France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.

This was a remarkable achievement, considering that these countries only a few years previously had been fighting in a most terrible war, and four of the founding nations had been viciously subjugated by another of the founders, Germany, during their Nazi regime.

In a speech four months later in July 1957 at Westminster’s Central Hall, Churchill welcomed the formation of the EEC by the six, provided that “the whole of free Europe will have access”. Churchill added, “we genuinely wish to join a free trade area”.

But Churchill also warned:

“If, on the other hand, the European trade community were to be permanently restricted to the six nations, the results might be worse than if nothing were done at all – worse for them as well as for us. It would tend not to unite Europe but to divide it – and not only in the economic field.”

Maybe this is the point that many Brexiters simply don’t get.

Here in Britain we don’t seem to understand the founding purpose of the European Union – and on the rest of the continent, they don’t understand why we don’t understand.

The European Union isn’t just about economics and trade, and never was.

It’s about peace, and a community of nations of our continent working together for the benefit and protection of its citizens.

We are now rebuffing our allies in Europe, telling them by our actions and words that the precious, remarkable and successful post-war project to find peace and security on our continent isn’t as important to us as it is to them.

Will our friendship and relationship with the rest of our continent ever recover?

• Article and video production by Jon Danzig

• Photo: central Rotterdam on 14 May 1940 after the bombardment by German war planes. Around 900 people died and vast swathes of the city were destroyed in the bombing. Almost 80,000 people lost their homes when parts of the city became ‘a sea of fire’. Photo: German federal archives via Wikimedia Commons.

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• Follow my Stop Brexit campaign on Facebook: Reasons2Remain

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The EU was started for peace

→ On Remembrance Sunday, let's also remember peace – Please shareTHE EU WAS STARTED FOR ONE PURPOSE: PEACE – Video 4 minsOn Remembrance Sunday we commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts.November 11, 2018 also marks the 100th anniversary since the end of the First World War, Armistice Day.Of course, we must never forget those who gave their lives in service to our country. We especially owe a great debt to all those who helped to save this country – and the rest of Europe – from the terrible onslaught of the Nazi regime in the Second World War.But as well as remembering all those who fought so hard and valiantly during times of war and conflict, we should also remember all those who worked so hard and valiantly to help to avoid wars and conflicts.The European Economic Community – later to be called the European Union – was started in the aftermath of the Second World War with one purpose and one purpose alone: to avoid wars on our continent ever happening again.That was the passionate resolve of those who are regarded as the eleven founders of the European Union, including our own war leader, Winston Churchill.After all, Europe had a long and bloody history of resolving its differences through war, and indeed, the planet’s two world wars originated right here, on our continent.So the EU was never just an economic agreement between nations.It was always also meant to be a social and political union of European nations to enable them to find ways not just to trade together, but to co-exist and co-operate in harmony and peace on many levels as a community of nations.The goal, in the founding document of the European Union called the Treaty of Rome, was to achieve ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’ (which is rather different to ‘ever closer union of nations’.)Just one year after the Second World War, in 1946, Winston Churchill made his famous speech in Zurich, Switzerland in which he said:“We must build a kind of United States of Europe. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important.”At the time Churchill did not envisage Britain joining the new Union of Europe, but he was later to change his mind.In March 1957 the European Economic Community (EEC) was established by its six founding nations, France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.This was a remarkable achievement, considering that these countries only a few years previously had been fighting in a most terrible war, and four of the founding nations had been viciously subjugated by another of the founders, Germany, during their Nazi regime.In a speech four months later in July 1957 at Westminster’s Central Hall, Churchill welcomed the formation of the EEC by the six, provided that "the whole of free Europe will have access". Churchill added, "we genuinely wish to join a free trade area".But Churchill also warned:“If, on the other hand, the European trade community were to be permanently restricted to the six nations, the results might be worse than if nothing were done at all – worse for them as well as for us. It would tend not to unite Europe but to divide it – and not only in the economic field.”Maybe this is the point that many Brexiters simply don’t get.Here in Britain we don’t seem to understand the founding purpose of the European Union – and on the rest of the continent, they don’t understand why we don’t understand.The European Union isn't just about economics and trade, and never was.It’s about peace, and a community of nations of our continent working together for the benefit and protection of its citizens.We are now rebuffing our allies in Europe, telling them by our actions and words that the precious, remarkable and successful post-war project to find peace and security on our continent isn't as important to us as it is to them.Will our friendship and relationship with the rest of our continent ever recover?• Article and video production by Jon Danzig, a campaigning journalist and founder of Reasons2Remain.• Photo: central Rotterdam on 14 May 1940 after the bombardment by German war planes. Around 900 people died and vast swathes of the city were destroyed in the bombing. Almost 80,000 people lost their homes when parts of the city became ‘a sea of fire’. Photo: German federal archives via Wikimedia Commons.• Please re-Tweet, and follow Reasons2Remain on Twitter:twitter.com/Reasons2Remain/status/1061571453169082368• This video is now available on the Reasons2Remain YouTube channel. Please share to your friends who don't use Facebook: youtu.be/7CjzrmUjres Before commenting on the Reasons2Remain campaign page, please read our new Rules of Engagement: Rules.Reasons2Remain.com********************************************► Watch Jon Danzig's 50-minute video: 'Can Britain Stop Brexit?' Go to CanBritainStopBrexit.com********************************************• To follow and support Reasons2Remain just ‘like’ the page, and please invite all your friends to like the page. ********************************************• Please recommend Reasons2Remain in the reviews section. Here's the link: facebook.com/Reasons2Remain/reviews/********************************************• Follow Reasons2Remain on Twitter: twitter.com/reasons2remain and Instagram: instagram.com/reasons2remain/********************************************• Explore our unique Reasons2Remain gallery of over 1,000 graphics and articles: reasons2remain.co.uk********************************************• Reasons2Remain is an entirely unfunded community campaign, unaffiliated with any other group or political party, and is run entirely by volunteers. If you'd like to help, please send us a private message.********************************************• © Reasons2Remain 2018. All our articles and graphics are the copyright of Reasons2Remain. We only allow sharing using the Facebook share button. Any other use requires our advance permission in writing.#STOPBREXIT #EXITBREXIT #PEOPLESVOTE #FINALSAY

Posted by Reasons2Remain on Sunday, 11 November 2018

The post The EU was started for one purpose: peace appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

According to Viktor Yesin, Russian weapons may simply be ineffective in case of an open armed confrontation. The point is about the withdrawal of the United States from the INF Treaty, which regulates the elimination of short and medium range missiles.

The Perimeter functions perfectly and has passed all stages of preparation and verification, the system can be used only if all of Russia's other nuclear weapons are destroyed as a result of the enemy's attack. This Russian system of automatic nuclear retaliation in the West is known as the Dead Hand.

The Perimeter system was put in operation in the USSR in 1985. In a nutshell, the system ensures the automatic launch of nuclear missiles in case of a nuclear attack against Russia, even if there is no one left to be able to give such an order. All the available data about the work of the system is served with such words as "probably," "possibly," and so on. No one knows how the system works exactly. In general, the Perimeter is a form of artificial intelligence that evaluates a multitude of factors about a nuclear attack on the basis of information received from radar stations, space satellites, seismic activity, etc.

Nuclear-capable missiles will thus be launched from silos, mobile launchers, strategic aircraft, submarines to strike pre-entered targets, unless there is no signal from the command center to cancel the attack. In general, even though there is little information available about the work of the Perimeter, one thing is known for sure: the doomsday machine is not a myth at all - it does exist.

The specialist is convinced that the United States can easily destroy Russia's nuclear arms. Without the INF Treaty, the USA will be able to deploy as many ballistic missiles as possible in Europe. According to Yesin, the Americans will thus be able not only to destroy Russian nuclear weapons, but to intercept them if Russia launches missiles to retaliate. The attack led to a massive nuclear exchange between the two countries that caused irreparable damage to the two states and claimed the lives of more than 400 million people.

Russia must revise its nuclear doctrine as soon as possible.

Source : Pravda.ru

Tag: RussiaINF TreatyPerimeter

Committee and political group meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

In one of those “politics as cock-up not conspiracy” moments, this week saw the (aggressive) leaking of a document purporting to be the government’s plans for selling the Withdrawal Agreement.

I say aggressive, since the leaker pushed it out to several media outlets at once, so really wanted it out there, spelling mistakes and all.

The government has distanced itself from the paper, and the general view seems to be that – at most – it’s an early draft from someone not that central to the negotiations. Even the reflected glory of seeing the guy I work with get mentioned as a thought-leader doesn’t make it any more valuable than that.

But it does raise the question of how the government will go about selling whatever deal it gets.

In that, the leak does point towards a pretty credible direction.

Rather than trying to pretend it’s all hunky-dory, the suggestion is that it be presented as a “measured success”, where the UK has fought for its interests and done as well as could be expected in the circumstances. That allows defenders/promoters to deflect some of the criticism by saying that while there are indeed some parts that aren’t ideal, they are the price of getting concessions elsewhere and/or they were points that the EU absolutely couldn’t be bidded on.

From that starting point, the plan would then move to a twin-track approach: pushing the necessary legislation hard and fast through Parliament, while simultaneously gridding up media activity to get buy-ins from the great and the good. In essence, the momentum of all of this would be beneficial to getting things over the line, in terms of UK ratification.

But does this stand up?

In one sense, the government isn’t going to have much choice in the matter, since they cannot achieve an agreed text that gives them everything they want, because the EU will not agree to it. That means they have to accept that there are compromises, since it would be completely indefensible to pretend it was an unqualified success, leaving them open to the charge of being out of touch with the realities of the situation.

Given this, and assuming they don’t want to go down the route of pleading for mercy from the Tory backbench and Parliament – also not a hot look – they have to play the line of “we’ve done our very best and we’re pretty happy about it, generally speaking”.

The difficulty comes in whether this necessity can be transformed into a successful ratification.

The first issue will be that of timing: can the government move rapidly from a signed deal to a legislative proposal? Even if one assumes that there is a draft Withdrawal and Implementation Bill floating around, waiting for some Ctrl-C-V action, there will still be a number of delays. Any European Council agreement-in-principle will then need some times – probably weeks – to produce a legally-tight text for signing, just as the draft Bill will need work to review in light of the final deal.

Given the speed of modern politics, that’s a huge window in which opposition can mobilise on specific issues and own the debate.

Secondly, much of the potential support from outsiders is likely to be a bit ambivalent. Yes, a deal is good, for the certainty it provides into the transition period, but by necessity it doesn’t commit the parties to a particular form of future relationship, so there’s a lot of wait-and-see about it. So everyone with a preference about the future will be torn between stressing what they do like about the omens contained therein, and worrying about the bits they don’t like.

Put differently, the Withdrawal Agreement is about ending the UK’s membership, not setting out the future.

Finally, the plan relies on a relatively cohesive Cabinet, willing to go out and sell the deal. While the Chequers reshuffle of the summer removed the most problematic individuals on that front, it’s not hard to imagine further ructions as the grid swings around to the less-enthusiastic members. Any resignations will give an opportunity to opponents to switch the narrative to ‘Cabinet splits’, potentially freeing backbenchers from some of their sense of duty to support the party line (and encouraging opposition parties to prod the wound in the hope of forcing a motion of confidence and early elections).

But notwithstanding all these dangers, we come back to the earlier point: the government doesn’t have much choice in the matter. Right now, as staffers work to produce a similar-but-different version of the leaked document, the emphasis will have to be on how to manage and mitigate the risks that have to be run. And we’ll see how that goes sooner, rather than later.

The post Selling the Withdrawal Agreement appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Before discussing any implications of Brexit for UK standards and regulations, let us remind ourselves what are standards and why are they important.  Standards are a range of powerful marketing and business tools for businesses and institutions of all shapes and sizes. They can be used to adjust performance and manage risks, while operating more sustainably and efficiently. They allow businesses and institutions to demonstrate the proof of quality for their products & services to potential customers and can assist to merge best practices into the corporate structure. Standards represent a range of very coherent ways of information sharing between governments and businesses about what should be considered as a norm.

The British Standards Institution, (aka BSI, which produces technical standards on a wide range of products and services, and also provides certification and standards-related services to businesses), has been appointed by the UK Government (HMG) to act as the UK National Standards Body (NSB). In this role, BSI is responsible for the structures that enable the UK to participate in national, European (please note – ‘European’, not EU) and international standards-making systems and for overseeing the range of these standards which are currently valid in the UK.

Through the BSI, the UK participates in the European  (please note again – ‘European’, not EU) Standardisation System, with BSI as a full member of CEN (European Committee for Standardisation), CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation) and ETSI, as well as in two international standards-making systems ISO and IEC.

This is a very important distinction. Although CEN, CENELEC and ETSI  develop European standards, not ‘EU standards’ (they include NSB from countries outside the EU, including Ukraine, and are not official agencies of the European Union but rather private members associations owned by their members  including BSI, are entirely private bodies, and therefore not part of the EU’s institutional framework), nevertheless, their standards are “EN” EU (and EEA) standards, according to EU Regulation 1025/2012.

Such ‘Single Standard model’ is valid among many industries and enables companies and individuals to work and trade in the EU single market. This principle is called reciprocity, to make business as smooth as possible across national borders.

The overwhelming majority of standards being in existence in the UK are international in nature (over 95%), while the number of UK-only standards is rather small. Over 1,500 of them are withdrawn annually (e.g. there used to be 160,000 British Standards, now reduced to 19,000 Single Standards).

However, some standards are conjoined with relevant EU regulations (less than 20% in Europe) and are known as ‘harmonised standards’ (we have discussed them briefly in a previous blog).

Immediately after the Brexit referendum in 2016, the British Standards Institution , has conducted a webinar on the Brexit implications for standards and regulations in the UK. This webinar was further endorsed/supported in 2018 by another BSI statement.

As regard CEN and CENELEC. the BSI’s continued membership should not accordingly be affected by Brexit. Some adjustment to the internal rules of CEN and CENELEC may be necessary to assure this and steps are in hand to bring this about. There are no such adjustments required in the case of ETSI.

If the UK does not maintain its full membership of CEN and CENELEC through BSI, British stakeholders would lose their influence over the content of the standards used in the 33 other member countries and British industry would face increased barriers to trade (BSI membership of the two international standardization organizations, ISO and IEC, will be unaffected by the UK’s exit from the EU).

In its position paper “European standards and the UK” the BSI raised a series of five principal questions:
1. What are standards and why are they important for industry?
2. What is the European Single Market?
3. What benefits do European standards bring to the European Single Market?
4. How are these benefits delivered?
5. What would be the impact of a UK exit from the EU in terms of UK participation in the European standardization system?

In the same paper the BSI attempted to offer some solutions, which in their opinion will be instrumental in maintaining the status quo. We will analyse some important points of this position paper in the subsequent blogs.

The post Possible outcomes of UK departure from EU and its implications for British standards and regulations appeared first on Ideas on Europe.