We estimate that leaving the single market and customs union had reduced UK trade by 11 per cent in March 2021. That is on top of a 10 per cent hit to trade between the referendum and leaving the single market.
The US wants the UK to diverge from EU food hygiene rules and to prioritise political and economic stability in Northern Ireland. But what if the UK can’t do both?
The scale of Biden’s spending plans means the US economy will recover much faster than Europe’s. Yet in many ways it is the European economy that is in greater need of stimulus.
Rather than obsessing about services exports, UK policy-makers should focus on investment and ensuring the UK remains an attractive destination for multinational services firms to operate out of.
At the CER's Ditchley economics conference, participants discussed the global role of the EU in the aftermath of the pandemic, with faltering trade and investment and growing strategic competition between the US and China.
The international role of the US dollar is deeply entrenched. To change that, Europe – and Germany in particular – would need to rethink some core economic policies.
The EU's liberal model of shared sovereignty is under threat. Europe cannot afford to remain a pure soft power. It has to reform and learn how to play power politics.
The EU’s new foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, may struggle to co-ordinate the Union’s external activities in the face of rival European commissioners and unruly member-states.
The EU should exempt developing country exports from its CBAM to avoid unfairly penalising countries that have contributed a much smaller share of cumulative global carbon emissions.
Greenhouse gas emissions from Europe’s farms have been flat since 2005. The Common Agricultural Policy, which consumes 37 per cent of the EU’s budget, subsidises a sector that needs to clean up its act.
Having identified the Euro-Atlantic area as its home region and Russia as the most acute threat there, the British government must not ignore the EU’s role as a security partner.
Corruption is a problem for the European Union and endangers the rule of law. To protect EU money and stop democratic backsliding, the EU needs better anti-graft plans.
The EU and the UK will find an agreement on extradition and Europol. But both parties are further apart on data protection than it may seem. Data transfers will be a problem in the future relationship.
The EU risks being caught between an increasingly hostile US and China. It must manage relations with both in order to protect the rules-based global order.
