Editorial of the “World”. It was time to end it. Four and a half years after having chosen, by referendum, to leave the European Union, the British concluded with their twenty-seven neighbors an agreement on their economic relations. After formally leaving the European Union (EU) on January 31, London will exit the European customs union and single market on January 1er January 2021. In the absence of the “deal” announced on the morning of Thursday, December 24, trade, vital on both sides, between the United Kingdom and the EU, would have been hit by customs duties.
Some 300,000 jobs would have been in danger across the Channel, and many others on the continent. The thousands of trucks stranded on both sides of the Channel, after the European decision to stop traffic following the report of a new variant of coronavirus by the British, give an idea of the intensity of the exchanges and of the disaster that a “no deal” would have constituted by increasing the formalities and slowing down the border crossing.
Over the 1,500 pages of text approved Thursday, a compromise was painfully drawn, including on fishing, a politically sensitive issue for the United Kingdom as well as for France. Common ground was also found on the most serious issue for the future, that of a level playing field, where the Twenty-Seven fear British dumping. London was given the freedom to diverge from European rules and a complex arbitration and sanctions mechanism was negotiated. Only experience will allow to test its solidity and reliability.
It took nine months of tortuous negotiations to find minimum rules capable of ensuring the fluidity of trade between partners who, conversely, had worked for decades to bring their standards and regulations closer together. Contrary to the classic negotiation of a trade agreement between States, it was a question of untangling the innumerable bonds woven over forty-seven years of a marriage of convenience, where love never hatched. A depressing job, in terms of Europe weakening itself by relieving itself of a substantial part of itself, in this case a country which had largely inspired the single market which it now wanted to leave.
Particular tribute must be paid to Michel Barnier, head of the EU negotiators, for the energy he deployed in these exhausting discussions, for his composure never failing, despite incessant maneuvers of destabilization, for the sense of the collective, which he has demonstrated with each attempt to ” divide and rule ” and which allowed him to maintain the confidence of all until the end.
New configuration
In this ordeal, the Twenty-Seven have, against all odds, demonstrated a flawless unity worthy of all praise. In this vital negotiation for the common future, the defense of the single market served as a unifying principle. It is to be hoped that the Union, freed from the force of inertia and opposition exerted by London, will be able to take advantage of this new configuration to increase its cohesion and strengthen its positioning in the world. Brexit highlights the power that the Twenty-Seven can have in unity.
The relief provided by the end of this marathon divorce cannot make us forget the essential: manifestation of English nationalism (the Scots and the Northern Irish voted mainly against), Brexit is a historic error, the result of the risky bet of the former Conservative Minister David Cameron and lies from demagogues like Boris Johnson, who made the British believe they would ” butter [le libre accès au marché européen] and the butter money [le retour à la pleine souveraineté] “. As for Theresa May, she aggravated the division of the country by opting for a hard Brexit marked by the exit from the single market, a harsher formula than the one pro-Brexit voters thought they voted for in 2016.
The Covid-19 having imposed the intervention of the State, the ultraliberal project of the brexiters is no longer even audible. As for the support of American cousins, allegedly acquired during Donald Trump’s time, it disappeared with the election of Joe Biden. Decided on the faith of lies, Brexit is a project with the wrong time of history, harmful for the economy and carrying new frictions. The Europeans, but especially the British, have not finished paying the price.
