Issue 134 / 19 December 2023 (2024)

Welcome to the 19 December 2023 Brexit & Beyond newsletter

The EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly met in Westminster. UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron gave evidence to the Lords European Affairs Committee. The Commons European Scrutiny heard evidence as part of its inquiry into Retained EU Law. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris-Heaton Harris told the media today that talks with the DUP on the Windsor Framework are over.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our readers!

• EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly
• Lord Cameron gives evidence
• Retained EU Law
• Other news

UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly

The EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly (PPA) met on 4-5 December in Westminster. Diane Dodds (DUP) and Kate Nicholl (Alliance) attended from the NI Assembly. DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is a full member of the PPA, while Baroness Ritchie is a substitute. The parliamentarians heard from Leo Doherty, UK Minister for Europe and Pedro Serrano, EU Ambassador to the UK, and discussed issues including artificial intelligence, climate change, and the UK-EU relationship.

4th meeting of the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly | Source: © UK Parliament

CBAM

Diane Dodds spoke during the debate on climate change (watch her intervention in the debate at 2.10). She highlighted the implications of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), if applied in NI. Meanwhile yesterday the UK announced it will introduce its own CBAM by 2027. It says its design and delivery will be subject to further consultation in 2024. The BBC’s John Campbell points out that for NI, the EU and UK CBAMs will have to align as much as possible “to avoid a fresh round of complexity for goods trade” between GB and NI. The Government has published a summary of responses to its consultation and a factsheet.

Mobility

The PPA made a recommendation to the Partnership Council, which oversees the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, calling for them to work collaboratively to improve the opportunities for youth mobility between the EU and UK. It recommends that the EU and UK should accept that EU nationals and UK nationals can travel between their territories with identity cards on organised school trips. The PPA calls on the EU and UK to “prioritise the mobility of touring artists, with a view to developing a comprehensive approach that would allow artists and their teams to tour freely in the EU and UK.” On 7 December the Home Secretary announced rule changes to allow schoolchildren in France to visit the UK on organised educational trips without the usual passport or visa requirements. The Lords European Affairs Committee calls for this to be extended to all member states.

Documents from the PPA meeting can be found here; a report from the breakout groups on data protection, fisheries and citizens’ rights has been published.

Lord Cameron gives evidence

UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron gave evidence to the Lords European Affairs Committee, his first appearance before a parliamentary committee since taking up the role. On the review of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, Lord Cameron said, “I do not think trying to reopen it and change the nature of it is what we should be doing…obviously we have some things that we would like to fix, but they probably have some things that they want to fix with us, and it does not always help to lay out a huge list of things in advance. I want us to be canny and tough operators to get the best out of this.”

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs speaking to the House of Lords European Affairs Committee | Source: © House of Lords 2023 / photography by Roger Harris

Baroness Ludford said the UK’s data adequacy decision from the Commission, “enables not only hugely important business data flows…but also the exchange of data in law enforcement, such as under the Prüm agreement. There is a big cloud looming.” In June 2021, the European Commission adopted two data protection adequacy decisions for the UK, which will have to be renewed after four years. Lord Cameron responded, “I do not think that [the UK’s legislation, the Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill] should threaten our data adequacy in any way, because, of course, there are lots of other countries that have data adequacy nominations from the EU…and have very different data rules to us.” The Northern Ireland Department for the Economy has published a report on the risks to cross border transfer of personal data.

Lord Cameron told peers on 5 December that the Windsor Framework was “a superb negotiation. The EU said it would never reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and it did; it said it would never give an emergency brake, yet it did when it came to Stormont; and it never really makes exceptions for single market access for non-single market countries, yet it has…I think it can fulfil the seven tests that the Democratic Unionists have put forward.”

Retained EU Law

On 6 December, the Commons European Scrutiny heard evidence as part of its inquiry into the progress and mechanics of the reform of Retained EU Law. Joël Reland, Research Associate at the UK in a Changing Europe, said the impacts on the internal UK market “are often forgotten, and then you end up suddenly realising you are going to bazooka Northern Ireland if you go ahead with something, and you have to take three steps back to make sure you do not do that.” He added, “Direction setting is needed…there is no coherence. There is no systematic thinking about how it is all working and what you want your regulatory principles to be.”

Reland’s view is that there hasn’t been much substantive reform because “the notion of regulation best suited for the UK is an oxymoron, and regulation is primarily about reducing barriers and creating common standards between different jurisdictions so that they can engage with one another as easily as possible.” He gave the example of the UK’s medical devices rules, which are simpler, but “there is still more procedure than if we just followed the same rules as everybody else”. He said the risk from that is that devices then do not come onto the UK market because they are going to prioritise the EU regulations. Secondly, as the EU is the main export market for many British businesses, they will continue to follow these rules anyway. A third factor, he said, is disruption if reform creates divergence with Northern Ireland.

Dr Oliver Garner of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law concluded that there is “nothing about retained EU law that ever restricted the sovereignty of Parliament, ever restricted the self-determination of individuals…I think it would have been better for the United Kingdom to simply convert retained EU law to assimilated law and then present the positive agenda of what will be done.”

The Government is required to produce regular reports on its reform of and plans for REUL; the first of these is due before 22 January 2024. Scottish Parliament research has published an update on the REUL to be revoked at the end of this year. Professor Simon Usherwood has published his analysis of the REUL reform process.

Other news

• The UK Government is legislating to amend the Definition of Qualifying Northern Ireland Goods: food and feed must be traceable to a registered Northern Irish business. This aims to limit potential avoidance of checks on goods arriving into GB.
• The Commons European Scrutiny Committee has published its latest report which covers an EU regulation on toy safety, and changes to the EU mercury regulation, which would both potentially apply in NI.
• The European Commission has approved under EU state aid rules a £20 million UK scheme to support companies in Northern Ireland impacted by the war in Ukraine.
• The UK Government has announced plans to legislate to tackle deforestation. It will ensure products which have been produced on land linked to illegal deforestation (such as palm oil, cocoa, beef, leather and soy) cannot be sold in supermarkets. Large businesses will be required to undertake a due diligence exercise on their supply chains and to report on this annually. Andrew Opie, Director of Food and Sustainability at the British Retail Consortium previously raised concerns about the implications of the EU regulation on deforestation on GB-NI trade. He said, “Tackling deforestation requires global cooperation and we look forward to seeing further detail as to how the legislation will align with European proposals.” The Grocer reports on the plans, including the omission of rubber and coffee from the list of commodities.
• The UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron met his Irish counterpart Tánaiste Micheál Martin on 13 December.
• The European Commission announced a delay until 31 December 2026 of the introduction of stricter rules of origin for electric vehicles and batteries. Exports of UK vehicles to the EU (with batteries from outside the EU or UK) and vice versa would have faced tariffs of 10%. This extension had been pushed for by both UK and EU carmakers.
• On 4 December, the UK’s association to Horizon Europe and Copernicus was made official through the adoption of a decision in the Specialised Committee on Participation in Union Programmes. Horizon Europe is the EU's research and innovation programme with a budget of €95.5 billion. Copernicus is the EU’s Earth observation programme.
• The Citizens' Rights Specialised Committee met on 4 December. Both the EU and UK raised issues regarding the implementation and application of Part 2 of the Withdrawal Agreement, which protects the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU, and their eligible family members.
• The Special EU Programmes Body announced €45 million in funding for youth projects in Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland.
• The third annual meeting of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, was held in Dublin on 6 December. They launched a second joint activity report on Equality and Human Rights on the Island of Ireland. The Commissions work together in relation to the UK Government’s commitment to no diminution of rights, safeguards or equality of opportunity in Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit.
• Minutes of the Trade Specialised Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures meeting on 11 October have been published.
• The first UK-EU Cyber Dialogue took place in Brussels on 14 December.