Daily Archives: March 21, 2021

Britain broke from the European Unions regulatory orbit on Jan. 1, casting off nearly half a century inside the bloc. While it formally left in January 2020, for 11 months Britain was in a transition period, operating under E.U. rules as negotiators settled on terms of the two sides future commercial relations.

The split, known as Brexit, has now been finalized, setting in motion what analysts say will be the biggest overnight change in modern commercial relations. A trade agreement between the two sides, far from closing the book on Britains tumultuous relationship with the rest of Europe, opened a new chapter, starting with an avalanche of trading obstacles on Jan. 1.

Why Brexit?

A portmanteau of the words Britain and exit, Brexit caught on as shorthand for the proposal that Britain split from the European Union and change its relationship to the bloc on trade, security and migration.

Britain has debated the pros and cons of membership in a club of European nations almost from the moment the idea was broached, in the years after World War II. In the 1960s, it applied twice for membership in what was then the European Economic Community, only to be vetoed both times by France.

In 1973, Britain finally joined the club and held its first referendum on whether to leave less than three years later. At the time, 67 percent of voters supported staying in the bloc.

But that was hardly the end of the argument.

In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron promised a national referendum on European Union membership with the idea of settling the question once and for all. The options offered to voters were broad and vague Remain or Leave and Mr. Cameron was convinced that Remain would win easily.

That turned out to be a serious miscalculation.

As voters in Britain went to the polls on June 23, 2016, a refugee crisis had made migration a subject of political rage across Europe.

Europe is Britains most important export market and its biggest source of foreign investment, and E.U. membership has helped London cement its position as a global financial center.

With some regularity, major businesses announced that they were leaving Britain because of Brexit, or at least threatened to do so.

Had the split been finalized without a deal governing future commercial relations, businesses feared enormous logjams at the borders and deep uncertainty about rules of trade across the English Channel.

But even with a deal, the path forward is uncertain. The Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent official body that assesses the British governments economic plans, estimated that economic output in the country could be 4 percent lower cumulatively over the next 15 years than it would have been inside the European Union.

British companies have long been able to move goods to and from the European Union without paying taxes or tariffs. Had the two sides failed to reach a deal before the Dec. 31 deadline, tariffs would have been imposed, raising the price of cars considerably and making it much more difficult for British farmers to sell meat, for example, elsewhere in Europe.

A no-deal separation also looked likely to create gridlock at British ports and strand trucks on either side of the border.

The new agreement meant that Britain avoided onerous tariffs or quotas on goods. But problems have emerged, with checks increasing and traders having to complete new customs declarations. And commercial relations face more restrictions.

The number of people employed in fishing in Britain has fallen in recent decades a decline for which Brexit proponents blamed E.U. rules on sharing access to fisheries and the British government cast its split from the European Union as a chance to revive the industry.

Britain originally sought an 80 percent reduction in the share of fish that E.U. boats would be allowed to catch in British waters. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson made significant concessions on that point: The European Unions fishing quota in British waters is being cut 25 percent, although that will be phased in.

Brussels also compromised: Annual negotiations on fishing rights will begin in five and a half years, and the European Union had wanted a longer-term agreement giving it access rights to British waters.

British fishers, unhappy not to have exclusive access to fish in British waters, complained about the deal. But analysts said British boats wouldnt have the capacity to catch everything that once went to European boats, even if they had the right to.

A no-deal scenario would have brought tariffs on British fishing companies, which currently sell much of their catch in E.U. countries. But even with a deal, some seafood exporters say that the added port-Brexit bureaucracy, and the extra time required to get their products to buyers in continental Europe, could drive them out of business.

Citizens of E.U. member states can look for jobs elsewhere in the bloc, work there without needing special permits and stay after they have left their jobs. But the trade deal ends the free movement of people between Britain and the rest of the continent.

It also ends Britains involvement in the Erasmus exchange program, which since 1987 had sent hundreds of thousands of young people each year traveling abroad for study, work experience and apprenticeships.

The European Union operates a single market, with member countries accepting shared rules and regulations so that goods, services and capital can move freely between them. Its also a customs union: Members agree to apply the same taxes on goods from outside the bloc, meaning that they can be shipped within the European Union without further tariffs.

Britain has now left both the single market and the customs union and can pursue separate trade deals with other countries. Those points were among the demands made by the most fervently pro-Brexit lawmakers in Britain.

In return for allowing British companies to avoid tariffs, the European Union wanted to ensure that those companies would not gain unfair advantages over E.U. rivals. The blocs leaders worried that Britain would give its own companies a leg up through additional state aid or by lowering environmental or labor standards.

Britain did not want the European Union to be able to automatically impose sanctions over any departure from European rules. So the two sides worked to devise a mechanism by which either could raise a complaint if it had evidence that one had changed regulations in a way that put the others businesses at a disadvantage.

As a last resort, if Britain and the European Union cannot find common ground in such a scenario, tariffs could be imposed to ensure that one side does not have too much of an advantage.

Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, has the countrys only land border with the European Union the politically sensitive 310-mile frontier with Ireland.

After decades of sectarian strife, a peace process in the 1990s allowed checkpoints to be dismantled, and preventing the return of a hard border was a priority for both sides.

Under a deal struck late in 2019, Northern Ireland was given a special trade status and will continue to follow many European rules, so trucks can continue to cross the Irish border freely.

The agreement did mean that there would be new paperwork and some regulatory checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, although the new trade deal struck on Dec. 24 prevented the addition of even more bureaucracy for traders.

Still, the new system has caused headaches for companies as they pick their way through the fine print. Deterred by the paperwork, some British companies have limited distribution of their goods to Northern Ireland, and some products have disappeared from supermarket shelves there.

The new trade deal left Britains services sector encompassing not only Londons powerful financial industry, but also lawyers, architects, consultants and others uncertain about its future dealings with the E.U., despite the sectors accounting for 80 percent or more of British economic activity.

The agreement does at least partially smooth the flow of goods across British borders, but it leaves financial firms without the biggest benefit of E.U. membership: the ability to easily offer services to clients across the region from a single base. This had long allowed a bank in London to provide loans to a business in Venice or trade bonds for a company in Madrid.

That loss is especially painful for Britain, which ran a surplus of 18 billion pounds, or $24 billion, on trade in financial and other services with the European Union in 2019, but a deficit of 97 billion, or $129 billion, on trade in goods.

Now, the sale of services, once assured, hangs on patchwork decisions by European regulators about whether Britains new financial regulations are close enough to their own to be trusted. While Londons expertise is difficult to match, putting its financial and service firms in a strong position to weather the storm, some obstacles are inevitable. Already, some Britons living in Europe have been told their bank accounts in Britain would be closed.

For bankers, traders, truckers, architects and millions of migrants, the Dec. 24 trade agreement was only the beginning, Day 1 of a high-stakes and unpredictable experiment in how to restitch a tight web of commercial relations across Europe.

In the four years after Britains referendum, the number of Europeans migrating to the country for work plunged, and British companies sent employees to Paris and Frankfurt to set up toeholds on the continent. But despite their preparations, businesses braced themselves for considerable difficulties after Jan. 1.

British food distributors, spared the calamity of a no-deal separation, nevertheless scrambled to prepare the first of hundreds of thousands of new export certifications to allow their meat, fish and dairy to be sold to the bloc. Once exempt from such burdensome checks, they now face the same inspections as European imports from countries like Chile or Australia.

Britain is short of customs agents to deal with the tens of millions of customs declarations that are now needed, and even veterinarians to carry out new health assessments, industry experts said.

The deal also did little to assuage fears about how the countrys new immigration rules could complicate the lives of E.U. citizens living in Britain. People from other European countries have been allowed to apply for settled status in Britain, the right to stay indefinitely, and more than two million of them have been granted that status.

But few provisions were made for those unable to complete the process online, much less for those who dont realize they need permission to stay somewhere they have lived for decades.

Stephen Castle contributed reporting.

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What Is Brexit? And What Happens Next? - The New York Times

It has been well publicised that the collapse in economic activity last year, occasioned by the officially induced lockdown, was the biggest for some 200 years. The British economy experienced a bigger hit than most other advanced economies; but it was only the UK that suffered the additional blow of the self-harm caused by Brexit.

The damage is already apparent to businesses and traders that are struggling to cope with the huge impact of the red tape imposed by Britains departure on exporters and importers. The recently published overseas trade figures were truly shocking. But, as my Guardian colleague Polly Toynbee observed last week, the extent of the crisis is not yet apparent to many readers of the Brexit-supporting tabloid press, for the simple reason that the problems are under-reported there, and the welcome early success of the British vaccine programme is being misleadingly attributed to the freedom of manoeuvre allegedly afforded by Brexit.

Brussels and various European leaders have hardly acquitted themselves well during the vaccine furore. But the gloating on this side of the Channel cannot disguise for long that Brexit is an unmitigated disaster, from which all this Global Britain stuff is a pathetic distraction. Most businesses seem to realise that there was a point to the rules of the single market. The red tape they face now dwarfs the minor irritations of what went before.

The crass stupidity of the Brexit plotters was illustrated in the claim to parliament by the prime ministers former adviser, Dominic Eyetest Cummings, last week that his motive for backing Brexit was to achieve the freedom to improve the UKs science base. The fact that we were perfectly free to spend more on science if we chose while within the EU was neither here nor there. Moreover, in my experience most scientists are horrified by the collateral damage of Brexit.

There have been three obvious acts of self-harm in British economic policy during the past 100 years: the return to the gold standard in 1925; the entry of the pound into the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM) in 1990; and Brexit. The first was alleviated when the national government came off the gold standard in 1931, and the second on Black Wednesday in 1992, when the pound was forced out of the ERM. In both cases, an overvalued exchange rate had been bad news for our trading position, but the situation was rectified.

But here we are, and the question as that great pro-European Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan once said is where do we go from here? The answer, notwithstanding all the conflict between Brussels and Brexit Britain at present and things may well get worse before they get better is in due course to acknowledge the folly and, ideally, rejoin our most important trading partner, or at least move a lot closer. But I fear the lesson will be learned the hard way, and it may take years.

Meanwhile our Brexiter chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has an economy to run. It is a source of horror to many of his fellow Tories that he, a paid-up rightwinger, presides over an hitherto unimaginable level of government borrowing.

To those of us who, like the Queen, follow the horses, it was a source of some amusement during budget week that, while Sunak was going on about his moral duty to take control of the deficit and achieve sustainable finances, a horse called Fiscal Prudence could only manage to come 11th out of 13 in a race at Wolverhampton the week before, and 10th of 10 at Lingfield the following week.

On this question of sustainability, it was good to hear the former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, say on the BBCs Today programme recently that there is something else that also matters: The sustainability of health and life outcomes. The malignant impact of the Conservatives austerity policy from 2010 onwards on the governments preparedness or lack of it for the Covid crisis has been widely recognised.

This ought to mean that the government should abandon its obsession with post-recovery tax cuts Sunak has apparently told Tory MPs that he wishes to have a tax-cutting budget before the next election and focus on achieving a decent health system.

Moreover, the other issue which has manifested itself during lockdown is the extent of poverty and deprivation in the country, not least among essential workers. President Biden, in his hugely impressive $1.9 trillion rescue package for the US economy, has been refreshingly revolutionary in concentrating resources on the poor. It is an example that Britain should follow.

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When will we get Brexits Black Wednesday? - The Guardian

Polly Toynbees excellent article (The Brexit deal was astonishingly bad, and every day the evidence piles up, 16 March) has prompted me to write. I am a 62-year old British woman living in Germany because of my husbands job. So far we have lost rights and exchanged our driving licences for German ones. I no longer buy clothes from my favourite British companies or wool from a small business in my hometown in Wales.

Although I wanted to remain in the EU, I try to stay calm and look for any benefits from our situation. So far, one advantage is that we now have permanent residence permits that act as identification and this saves me taking my passport to collect a parcel from the post office, etc.

Recently, I tried to send a T-shirt and jeans to my grandson in England. As the German post office had previously lost a parcel of handmade clothes, I have since used GLS parcel service. When I looked on the website, I found that it no longer delivers to the UK. I tried various other companies but only found information about commercial parcels and resigned myself to going to the post office. Any parcel now needs to be accompanied by completed customs form CN23, which requires 15 pieces of information including material, weight, country of manufacture and cost of every item (plus a total weight and value), even if these are gifts.

Im sure that this was not the expected consequence of our Brexit deal, but this is now the reality. My problems are nothing compared with those of the businesses that depend on trade, but they are just an illustration of life diminished.Juliet GuthrieOckenheim, Germany

Polly Toynbee highlights the effect on trade, but very little attention has been paid to the impact on individuals. Our family is spread around the globe: a daughter in the Republic of Ireland, another in England and a son in the US, while we have been permanent residents in Italy for over a decade. Because of Covid, we have been unable to make our annual car journey to visit our daughter in England, which had allowed us to stock up with hard-to-find essentials, books etc, and have had to depend on purchasing online or our daughter posting them.

Since the transition period ended this is no longer an option, as even items sent as presents from England are subject to VAT and extra handling charges imposed by couriers and postal services. For example, four cushion covers along with dried spices and books sent by our daughter in England cost us 44 in addition to the 25 courier charge she had already paid.

So in addition to being isolated from our family for over a year due to Covid, we are also unable to receive items from England due to the additional cost caused by Brexit.Patricia LawPisa, Italy

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Brexit is affecting the lives of families in Europe - The Guardian

SCOTT HEPPELL/AFP via Getty Images

SCOTT HEPPELL/AFP via Getty Images

On The Indicator, we're taking a culinary tour of Brexit! When The U.K. finally completed its exit from the European Union New Year's Eve, it meant that many different industries had to change the way they did business.

On the show, we're joined by Frank Langfitt, NPR's London correspondent, to discuss one of hardest hit sectors: food. Specifically, we're talking about oysters, cheese and wine. Each item tells a different story about the real world consequences of Brexit so far, from new regulations to extra paperwork to a nationalistic cheese buying frenzy.

And the people who work in these industries reflect on the promise of Brexit: how it was sold and what's actually happening on the ground.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: Twitter / Facebook / Newsletter.

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, PocketCasts and NPR One.

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Brexit Trade Negotiations Hurt UK Food Trade With EU : The Indicator from Planet Money - NPR

As evening began to fall at the White House on Wednesday, and all official engagements had wrapped up for the day in Dublin, there was one more item on President Joe Bidens agenda.

The president took part in a St Patricks Day Community Event live from the White House. Though the Zoom event had been organised relatively late by the administration, more than 1,000 people joined the call from across Ireland, Northern Ireland and America.

A relaxed Biden looked at ease as the event got under way, chatting to staff as technical difficulties were smoothed out. Am I unmuted? he said, flashing a smile. Well, there have been a lot of people in my life tried to put me on mute. Now theyre able to do it!

The event was in part a replacement for the lavish St Patricks Day party that the White House usually throws for hundreds of guests. As is the case with the virtual gatherings that have replaced live events in these pandemic times, the new format in some ways enhanced the experience.

Biden spoke candidly, welcoming people he recognised as their smiling faces popped up on the screen, many of them forgetting to mute, injecting a sense of giddy chaos to the event.

Biden described with a laugh how Michel Martin had told him that my win for the presidency was more popular in Ireland than it was in the United States. He recalled that The Irish Times had written about his genealogy when he visited Ireland. He also drew on Irish sayings he had absorbed since a boy may the hinges of our friendship never go rusty and may your home always be too small to hold your friends.

In a reminder of the informal nature of the forum, he strayed dangerously close to sensitive ground at one point, describing jokingly how he was often told by his mothers family: Its not your fathers fault that he has English blood.

His sister Val had advised him to stop telling the story, he said, questioning its veracity, and warning that the press is going to jump all over you! In fact, Biden told the crowd with a smile, he was proved correct when he found poems by his great-grandfather Blewitt with more than a hint of anti-British sentiment.

It was a somewhat different Biden than was on show for the cameras earlier that day in the Oval Office. Though the warmth was still evident, the US president was careful in his statements as he hosted the Taoiseach. Unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, who found it hard to resist the sight of a microphone, Biden smiled impassively as the small group of journalists shouted questions disciplined by decades of experience at the top of politics.

His public comments to the Taoiseach were warm but tactful. Like President Barack Obama, he said, we strongly support the Belfast Agreement. But messaging from senior administration officials ahead of the meeting said that the US did not wish to take sides in the increasingly tense standoff over post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland.

Irish officials point to the language that was agreed in the joint statement issued by the Taoiseach and US president after the meeting which affirms the Biden administrations commitment to protecting the Belfast Agreement. Both leaders called for the good faith implementation of international agreements designed to address the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland a comment widely seen as a warning to Britain over its move to delay the imposition of customs checks in breach of the Northern Ireland protocol.

But it seems that, for now, the president is unlikely to reiterate publicly his statement during the presidential campaign when he pointedly followed up comments by House speaker Nancy Pelosi by tweeting: Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.

Though Biden is well-versed in Irish affairs and was a founding member of the Friends of Ireland caucus, Britain remains a close partner of the US, particularly in the field of defence. British officials have stepped up their engagement in Washington in the past week amid a belief in London that they were losing the Northern Ireland PR battle on Capitol Hill.

Brexit negotiator David Frost and Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis briefed the ad hoc committee to protect the Belfast Agreement this week while Lewis also spoke with congressman Richard Neal. Whether the UKs outreach will be enough to counter Irish influence in Washington remains to be seen.

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Tactful Biden targeted by both sides over post-Brexit North - The Irish Times

OREM, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Avetta (www.avetta.com) surveyed more than 120 business leaders and found they expected Brexit to have the biggest impact on the resiliency of the supply chain in the short term and the future. Avetta partnered with the Executive Network Group to gather feedback from C-level executives; 72% of the respondents say the supply chain will experience the biggest changes from Britain leaving the European Union (EU).

One director in the aerospace industry has already seen some challenges. We have witnessed a shortage in raw materials and delays within our procurement function.

The findings included in the Brexit Impact Survey Report show half of the respondents expect Brexit to impact legislative changes; nearly one-third (29%) anticipate changes in documentation and administrative processes; 16% on sales revenue; 11% on market/sector competition; and 10% on hiring permanent staff. Only 5% saw an impact on engaging temporary staff and keeping sustainability, environmental and social value commitments.

Executives were also asked to provide comments. Here are some examples:

Overall, respondents are optimistic about Britains future. About one-fourth of the respondents agree Brexit will have an impact on hiring and flexible staffing needs in 2021. However, 39% expect Brexit will affect their hiring strategy for EU workers. Only 11% of the executives say theyve had to strengthen their team to deal with the changes.

The survey suggests executives will need to prepare for the following issues:

The report offers this conclusion: As with any period of significant change, each organisation will have its own unique set of challengesthose (who) invest in the education and upskilling of their workforce, may well be the ones who see a bright future post-Brexit.

Avetta recently completed analysis of tens of thousands of suppliers in numerous industries worldwide that shows companies using the Avetta Connect Platform have been able to reduce the number of safety incidents and lost work days by more than 50% compared to industry averages. The data also shows that over a 10-year period, suppliers in the Avetta network experience a 7% to 12% year-over-year decrease in incidents.

Avetta offers supply chain risk management software tools that can help executives keep track of all the changes and reduce any disruptions that come with such a sweeping change like Brexit. Visit http://www.avetta.com for more information.

About Avetta

Avetta offers a configurable SaaS-based solution that assists organisations both large and small in managing supply chain risk across a variety of disciplines. Avetta is building the worlds most intelligent supply chain risk management network to advance clients safety, resilience and sustainability programs. Avetta leads the world in connecting leading global organisations across several industries, including oil/gas, telecom, construction materials, facilities management and many others, with qualified and vetted suppliers, contractors and vendors. The company brings unmatched access and visibility to its clients supply chain risk management process through its innovative and configurable technology, coupled with highly experienced human knowledge and insight. Avetta currently serves more than 450 enterprise companies and 100K suppliers across 100+ countries.

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Survey Finds Business Leaders Are Optimistic About Brexit but Fear It Will Impact Resiliency of the Supply Chain - Business Wire

OSLO/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Norway, Britain and the European Union have reached a trilateral deal on catch limits for jointly managed North Sea fish stocks following the UKs exit from the EU, the three parties said on Tuesday.

FILE PHOTO: Fishermen fish aboard the Boulogne-sur-Mer based trawler "Manureva" in the North Sea, off the coast of northern France, December 7, 2020. French Fishermen net a quarter of their northeastern Atlantic catch in British waters and say their livehoods would be impacted if Brexit restricts their access to old fishing grounds. Picture taken December 7, 2020. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo

The new trilateral deal, covering common North Sea fishing quotas for cod, haddock, plaice, whiting, herring and saithe, is the first step toward ending legal havoc in key fishing waters since Britain completed its exit from the EU on Dec. 31.

British Fisheries Minister Victoria Prentis said that while the new accord covers common North Sea quotas, bilateral talks were underway with the EU, Norway and the Faroe Islands to confirm access arrangements and fish quota exchanges.

British, Danish, German, Swedish and French vessels all catch fish in the Norwegian part of the North Sea, home to some of the richest fishing stocks in Europe.

Norway had sought a trilateral pact with Britain and the EU on management of North Sea fish that swim between waters belonging to the EU, Norway and Britain - before making separate deals with the EU and Britain on quotas.

Norway, which is outside the EU but inside the European single market, had previously negotiated annually with the bloc about management of common fish stocks, access to each others waters and exchange of fish quotas.

That had to change, however, after Britain completed its exit from the EU at the end of last year.

The lack of a deal especially harmed Danish fishermen as it had governed their catches of cod, pollock, hake and monkfish in a key Norwegian area of the North Sea. Many Danish fishing vessels have been confined to ports since January.

The deal will mean that Danish fishermen will have access to Norwegian waters again, said Kenn Skau Fischer, head of the Danish Fishermen Organization, the EU countrys main fishing lobby group.

And it will mean that they have the possibility to plan their fishing for the whole year. Now they can actually make money again, he told Reuters.

Additional reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Gwladys Fouche and Mark Heinrich

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Britain, Norway in post-Brexit fisheries deal with EU - Reuters

Getting goods from the U.K. to EU is no longer plain sailing

Just a few months into the U.K.s new relationship with Brussels, British exporters to the EU are struggling with mounting Brexit red tape and border disruption. Half (49%) of U.K.-based exporters were facing extra costs and delays in shipments to and from the continent, due to extra border checks and paperwork, according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).

Before Brexit, shipments could be transported with minimal paperwork and delivered to destinations in other EU member states relatively seamlessly. Now there is a U.K. export declaration process, an exit border clearance process, a transit country process when cargo transits third countries, and an import declaration process at the destination country.

Sam Tyagi, founder and CEO of document management platform KlearNow, which is working with hundreds of U.K. businesses exporting to the EU, says: Goods that used to flow freely must now include additional documentation and other requirements, for example, phytosanitary certificates, testing and analysis reports, and other health and safety restrictions. Products such as perishable foods have an added time constraint that is causing a lot of headaches, while makers of some products, like perfumeries, have stopped shipping altogether until they can implement the required protocol.

Red tape is seriously impacting business for Plymouth-based ethical fishmonger Sole of Discretion, which buys fish exclusively from inshore from small boats, which benefits coastal communities. Around 35% of their annual sales come from a customer based in Belgium. The two companies have a shared ethos of preserving fish stocks and the livelihoods of the small-scale fisher.

The company normally makes twice-monthly exports of fish, but since the start of 2021 it has failed to send any, because the haulage company they use has yet to agree to collect their fish, citing too many problems with border control.

Founder Caroline Bennet says: We made our third attempt to export yesterday, again without success. This time it was rejected because the label had U.K. rather than United Kingdom. Every week we are given new rejection reasons. I dont know why they couldnt give us this information from the start.

The additional workload is taking its toll. Every shipment now requires eight documents, compared to the previous single document, effectively an address label. The excessive red tape incurs a huge cost both in terms of time and effort that cannot be simply charged to their customers in Belgium.

Increasing domestic sales to compensate for lost EU sales isnt necessarily a solution, as Bennet explains. She says: We need to change domestic consumption habits, weening them off the big five; cod, haddock, farmed salmon, tuna and prawn, which make up 80% of all fish consumed in the U.K., while our European customers buy pollack, ray, ling, pout, lemon, megrim, etc. Eating a wider variety of species will make a difference, simply eating more will put further pressure on already depleted stocks.

The company has been approached by Chinese and Singaporean buyers in recent years, but has no interest in selling beyond the U.K. or Europe. I dont believe that international trade fits well into our sustainable business model, she says. Many want airfreighted fish, for example, which in my view is not sustainable.

Bennet believes that prices will inevitably rise to cover the extra costs of the paperwork, and fears that smaller operators will be deterred by this, leaving the trade of international goods to the larger, corporate brands. This is a huge loss for foodies, she says. Small scale operators of niche, artisanal produce will decide there is enough demand locally and give up selling abroad.

U.K. companies are also struggling with EU sales because of VAT management and other added costs that must now be factored into pricing and profit margins.

EU customers of British organic baby clothes retailer MORI are being asked to pay up to 60% additional costs to clear goods for delivery. The companys pre-Brexit 2020 revenue from EU sales was 1.5 million. Now, they are forecasting a potential 13% revenue loss until a long-term solution can be implemented, which could include setting up a third-party logistics (3PL) warehouse in the EU.

CEO and founder Akin Onal says: The practicality of establishing a warehouse in the EU depends on which 3PL partner we choose and the integration process. It requires a project team, budget and planning, and for a business of our size, an additional amount of resources and management time.

Such a move would eliminate the duty on sales for orders placed by EU customers, reducing costs, making prices more competitive, and increasing the growth potential for the business. The downsides, however, include the operational complexities associated with multiple warehouses, including making significant adjustments to stock management systems, reduced flexibility, and the need for extra management staff.

Establishing a warehouse in the EU is the only long-term solution that will allow us to truly be competitive in Europe, says Onal. If our customers continue to have to pay up to 60% in extra costs to clear goods for delivery then we continue to lose out to our EU competitors, and any marketing efforts and spend are hard to justify.

The U.K. government has described the challenges for exporters as teething problems that will be resolved. But as Sam Tyagi points out, while new processes always involve a learning curve, transitioning from a manual entry process based on an old archaic business model is more than just a teething problem. The answer, he says, lies in digital transformation.

Automation and AI can improve efficiency and increase collaboration between all supply chain partners, says Tyagi. Companies should follow the technology trend and digitize global trade activities. New processes can be easily implemented and maintained by utilizing technology.

KlearNow has developed an all-digital customs business network with a web-based platform through which exporters, importers, transporters, and agents can collaborate via a common tool, eliminating the need for the multiple parties involved to manually rekey data.

This kind of automation improves communication, simplifies data processing, and streamlines recordkeeping, while boosting the speed of export and import filings directly with customs authorities, says Tyagi.

The upside of all this is that the U.K. is also free to negotiate bilateral and multilateral trade deals independent of any EU influence, which could have handicapped opportunities in the past. Tyagi adds: Although there are shipping costs associated with moving products further around the globe, those costs may be offset by other benefits resulting from expanding into new markets beyond Europe.

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Can Technology Solve The Post-Brexit Woes Of British Exporters? - Forbes

Nearly all economists agree that Brexit has left the UK poorer, although the full extent of the impact will remain unknown for many years. The recession triggered by Covid-19 has made separating the effects of the pandemic and those of Brexit harder.

The European Commission estimates that the UKs departure from the EU will cost the former 2.25 per cent of its GDP equivalent to 40bn in lost economic output by 2022. The EU, by contrast, would only lose around 0.5 per cent of its GDP.

A different estimate, this time from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), suggests that productivity in the UK will fall by 4 per cent owing to Brexit, with two-fifths of that impact already realised. Brexit alone will reduce growth in the first quarter of this year by 0.5 per cent, the OBR predicted.

[See also:How to remake Britain: Why we need community capitalism]

Pre-pandemic analysis by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) suggested that growth was around 2.1 per cent lower than previously expected by the end of the first quarter of 2019. This amounts to around 350m each week, which, coincidentally, is the same amount the Leave campaign misleadingly suggested the UK would save in EU budget contributions and use to fund the NHS.

Brexit has also driven inflation upwards. The OBR expects trade disruption to increase the pressure on British importers, with higher costs being passed on to consumers (a 0.25 per cent increase by the end of this year). Separate analysis by the CEPR found that Brexit had already led to a rise in inflation of 2.9 per cent by June 2018, which cost the average household 870 a year, the equivalent of 1.4 more weeks of work.

The consequences of Brexit are clearest in trade volumes. UK exports to the EU fell by 40.7 per cent this January compared to the previous month, according to the Office for National Statistics, the largest drop since records began in 1997. Non-EU exports, meanwhile, have remained largely unchanged.

Imports from EU countries have fallen by around 28.8 per cent, a larger decrease than for imports from the rest of the world. Imports were likely less affected than exports due to the EU imposing harsher border checks for goods than the UK.

Figures from other countries confirm this trend. UK exports to Germany fell by more than half (56 per cent) in January 2021 compared to the previous year, with imports also falling by a third (29 per cent).

While this unprecedented drop can be partially attributed to stockpiling in December and pandemic-related disruption, the fact non-EU trade has been significantly less affected indicates that Brexit was the primary factor.

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A survey of UK businesses found that half of all respondents (49.9 per cent) identified Brexit as the greatest export challenge, with an additional third (33.4 per cent) citing both Brexit and Covid-19. Just over one in ten (11.2 per cent) identified coronavirus as the sole cause with the reminder (5.5 per cent) choosing another option or being unsure.

Trade has been a particular problem in Northern Ireland, with 44 per cent of businesses saying they experienced some negative impact from the new trading rules and one in four saying the impact was significant. Three out of four firms say theyre also experiencing issues with suppliers in Great Britain.

As businesses adjust to the additional paperwork and longer delivery times, and the economy returns to its pre-pandemic level, trade will likely partially recover. But it is unlikely that the UKs trade with its largest partner will return to its previous level. One in five business leaders said their firms stopped trading with the EU in January, according to research by the Institute of Directors. Half of those said this decision is permanent.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has dismissed Brexit concerns, urging businesses to take a 10-year view and focus on long-term growth opportunities from emerging markets. But for firms struggling to recover from the worst UK recession in 300 years, and the effects of EU withdrawal, that offers little reassurance.

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How much has Brexit cost the UK? - New Statesman

The past year has hit many nonprofit organisations registered in England and Wales particularly hard because of both the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit. Funding from European sources may have been reduced or withdrawn, and many charities are struggling with a reduction of their own income streams. However, the United Kingdom can still be a productive base from which to administer your charity, and in this article, we look at how that might be done most efficiently.

The United Kingdom ranks seventh on the Charities Aid Foundation World Giving Index 2019, with only Ireland ahead of it in Europe. In 2018, there were more than 168,000 registered charities in England and Wales. Only charities with income over 5,000 are required to register with the Charity Commission, so there are likely many smaller unregistered entities as well.

Upon registering with the Charity Commission, the trustees must declare that the organisations funds are held (or will be held) in a bank or building society account in England or Wales. This has not always been an easy step to achieve given that many banks request a charity registration number as part of the account opening process. However, this challenge can normally be overcome with a simple explanation or by using more experienced specialist providers.

Whilst it is possible to run a UK-registered charity from outside the United Kingdom, it is certainly preferable to have a majority of UK-resident trustees. The Charity Commissions guidance on this issue states that there is usually no objection to the appointment of someone who does not have British nationality or who lives abroad, provided that the individual can act effectively for the purposes of the charity in terms of taking an active part in trustee decision making and the majority of the trustees live in England and Wales. The guidance does, however, go on to say that any appointment of a person resident abroad requires careful consideration, particularly where the person may not be amenable to direction by the court or by the Commission, given the limitations of its jurisdiction.

It is also worth remembering that the trustee declaration, completed at the registration stage of the process, requires that the primary address and residency details provided by the trustees are correct, and requires that the trustees will notify the Charity Commission if these details change. The geographic mobility of trustees and employees is, therefore, an important post-Brexit consideration for most charities, particularly where their work is spread across the European Union.

With this in mind, an immediate change for charities to consider is staff travel arrangements to and from the European Union, due to the fact that extra checks are in place. In particular, for longer trips, employees and representatives of the charity will no longer have an automatic right to stay and work indefinitely as UK citizens. Organisations will need to check each Member States entry requirements carefully and be aware of any visa application processes.

Funding is, of course, also a primary concern for charities and nonprofit organisations. Whilst sources of EU funding may be withdrawn, the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement specifies that the United Kingdom and EU Member States must set up a Civil Society Forum. Very few details are available about the forum as yet, but it is anticipated that it will include representatives from across the charity sector and will consider issues such as sustainable development, the economy and human rights.

Data management is also likely to be among issues considered by the forum and will be particularly relevant to charities which distribute marketing materials. However, many organisations already worked frantically in 2018 to ensure that their processes for managing personal data complied with the General Data Protection Regulation, so this should not present a deluge of immediate issues.

Matters that may not be within the remit of the forum, but which will no doubt be of interest to nonprofit organisations, may include the determination of tax reliefs and some of the same developments as are relevant to businesses, including VAT, equality law and employment rights.

Any organisation unsure about post-Brexit changes would be well advised to look at the governments transition website, which features a Brexit checker tool.

It may also be worth considering whether it would be beneficial to rebase your charity in central Europe and set it up as a foundation. The types of foundation used vary widely depending on the jurisdiction in which a foundation is registered, but similar favourable tax treatment is normally available.

Increasing numbers of UK-based organisations have established an additional or alternative presence in the European Union recently. Doing so has enabled them to retain vital European grant funding and maintain a level of consistency for staff based in Europe.

However, even if a charitys objects extend further than the United Kingdom, it remains an attractive base from which to operate by offering tax efficiencies such as exemption from VAT, council tax and rates. If the charity comprises a trading company, no corporation tax will be payable when it donates its profits to its parent charitys main purpose. Further, where individual donors are likely to be resident in the United Kingdom and paying income tax here, the ability to claim Gift Aid means that charities and community amateur sports clubs should be able to claim an extra 25p for every 1 donated, resulting in a significant uplift.

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The Impact of Brexit on UK-Based Charities - The National Law Review