Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Europe endless – Kraftwerk
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from the Past? The 1954 Association Agreement between the UK and the European Coal and Steel Community
- 2 From the European Free Trade Association to the European Economic Community and the European Economic Area: Portugal’s Post-Second World War Path
- 3 Norway and the European Economic Area: Why the Most Comprehensive Trade Agreement Ever Negotiated Is Not Good Enough
- 4 Switzerland: Striking Hard Bargains with Soft Edges
- 5 The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union
- 6 Ukraine: The Association Agreement Model
- 7 Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
- 8 The World Trade Organization Model
- 9 “Singapore on the Thames”
- 10 The United Kingdom and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 11 Australia (and New Zealand) after the 1973 “Great Betrayal”
- 12 What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
- 13 The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: A Flexible and Imaginative Solution for the Unique Circumstances on the Island of Ireland?
- 14 EU–UK Security Relations after Brexit
- 15 The UK Still In Europe? Is the UK’s Membership of the Council of Europe In Doubt?
- Afterword
- Index
Foreword
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Europe endless – Kraftwerk
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from the Past? The 1954 Association Agreement between the UK and the European Coal and Steel Community
- 2 From the European Free Trade Association to the European Economic Community and the European Economic Area: Portugal’s Post-Second World War Path
- 3 Norway and the European Economic Area: Why the Most Comprehensive Trade Agreement Ever Negotiated Is Not Good Enough
- 4 Switzerland: Striking Hard Bargains with Soft Edges
- 5 The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union
- 6 Ukraine: The Association Agreement Model
- 7 Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
- 8 The World Trade Organization Model
- 9 “Singapore on the Thames”
- 10 The United Kingdom and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 11 Australia (and New Zealand) after the 1973 “Great Betrayal”
- 12 What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
- 13 The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: A Flexible and Imaginative Solution for the Unique Circumstances on the Island of Ireland?
- 14 EU–UK Security Relations after Brexit
- 15 The UK Still In Europe? Is the UK’s Membership of the Council of Europe In Doubt?
- Afterword
- Index
Summary
For me, as a convinced European, Europe has always been about far more than a market. Europe is mostly about preserving and promoting a way of life: our values, the things that we care about, our civilization, the things which go to make up our European identity. The United Kingdom is incontestably an important part of European civilization and therefore it must remain a part of the European dream. From that broader point of view, Brexit is deeply regrettable and will have profound consequences, but it is not the end of the story. A new relationship between the EU and the UK must be found and, as this book will show, all sorts of models have evolved that may illuminate and perhaps even inspire the negotiators’ work. We know the equation they have to solve and that has not changed for a long time: how can the UK remain as distant as possible from European political integration while benefiting as much as possible from European economic unification? Different solutions have been found in the past, and will need to be found in the future.
It would be a mistake, in that context, to confuse the current negotiating stances of the two sides with what that relationship will turn out to be in the longer run. From a swift glance at the “to-do” list – the telephone directory of issues that will need to be settled and negotiated – it is clear that it is simply impossible for everything to be done within one year, nor even within two or three, were an extension to the transitional period to be requested and agreed. That was true before the Covid-19 crisis erupted and is even more true now. What is possible, and hopefully probable, is some sort of an interim agreement that settles most of the issues that need to be settled in the short term and establishes some general principles according to which all the other issues will be negotiated in due course. And then there will be, as in any agreement, implementation schedules or sequences or transitions. At least from the trade agreement point of view, such a staggered process would appear to be a “no-brainer”.
It would be a mistake, also, to confuse political rhetoric with underlying relationships.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Outside the EUOptions for Britain, pp. xv - xviiiPublisher: Agenda PublishingPrint publication year: 2020