I voted Leave and was vaguely hoping that the UK government would do the obvious thing and just rejoin EFTA (and stay in the EEA), which would give us most of the advantages of being in the EU as well as most of the advantages of not being in the EU, thereby "respecting the outcome of the Referendum" which was a score draw.
Leavers and Remainers both say that rejoining EFTA is a bad idea because "Norway and Switzerland have to accept EU laws despite not being members in order to trade with it".
FullFact comes to the conclusion that "This is about right. Both Norway and Switzerland keep out of some EU activities, such as the Common Agricultural Policy. But they bring many of their laws into line with EU rules, on the single market in particular. Norway incorporates single market rules as they’re made, while Switzerland accepts EU law from time to time in return for more market access."
There's a bit more to it than this, but it's partly a numbers thing.
The population of the EU (incl. UK) is 511 million against a total population in EFTA countries of just over 14 million, a ratio of 36:1.
Had the UK rejoined EFTA (I doubt that they'd still want us now), the numbers would be 445 million and 80 million, a ratio of 6:1. EFTA countries would still be outnumbered, but the imbalance would be considerably less and so the argument would have considerably less weight.
If then a couple of the less Europhile Member States follow the UK, the ratio would be lower still, once it drops below 3:1, the two blocs would be negotiating as equals.
Saturday, 2 March 2019
"Norway and Switzerland have to accept EU laws..."
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4 comments:
I seem to recall one D. Cameron saying a win by one vote would be decisive, yet you claim 1.25 million+ to be 'a score draw'. Okay. You send me one and a quarter million quid and I'll send you one quid, because after all they're 'a score draw', eh?
GCS, I usually delete stupid and aggressive comments, but I'll let you off for a first offence.
I work in Financial Services.
UK FS is about twice the size of the rest of the EU put together. Joining the EEA (and it was looked at, get the EFTA Court, not ECJ, etc) would mean the UK would be a rule taker for something that is much more important to the UK than certainly Norway. As pointed out, Swissie picks and chooses the EU laws.
Joining a Customs Union or EEA where Germany and France gets to set the rules for UK FS and the UK doesn't have a say, would be a disaster, particularly as both have ambitions to grow FS at UK expense.
Oh, and Norway pays to be a member of EEA. If the UK paid at the same rate, we'd be paying £10bn or so pa to take EU rules without any say.
T, ok, in which case we could do like Switzerland, in EFTA but not in EEA.
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