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The UK – EU future trade relationship: a new model agreement?
The UK wants to get the best possible access for goods and services to the European market. At the same time it wants greater regulatory space in shaping its own trade policy. Yet, there is a problem, because the more access to the European single market, the more the UK has to align its legislation to EU law, which results in much less policy space to shape its own trade policy and regulations. How to find the right balance between maintaining flexibility in UK policy space and reducing it through a deep integration model with the EU is likely to be the UK’s most challenging aspect in shaping its negotiating position.
“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces”
—W. Shakespeare, the Merchant of Venice
