Alexandre Regniault / Oct 2024
Image: Shutterstock
My dear, British friends Alex and Jenny in 2019 had the wonderful idea to buy a house next to our family home by the Loire river. Since Brexit, enjoying their French house has become significantly more complicated, from longer queues at the Shuttle tunnel and counting their days in Europe, to taking their dog to the vet and filling paperwork at the cost of several hundred pounds each time before crossing the Channel. Yet, surely poor Tilly does not bear any more dog diseases than she would before 2020.
Then it also strikes me that, had the UK not been part of the EU back in the 1990s, I would not have been able to study in London then in Oxford within and alongside the Erasmus programme – so, amongst many other regrets, I would never have met Alex and Jenny in the first place…
Truly, I find it utterly unfair to younger generations of British and European students that they cannot (or can less easily) enjoy the fantastic opportunity of these exchange programmes between Universities, that I was lucky to be part of at the time.
This is just an illustration of Brexit disruption to a number of individuals and families. Turning to wider economic considerations, the extra costs, undue administrative burden and losses of opportunities to many businesses as well as regulatory authorities and public institutions on both sides of the Channel are now evident and documented.
And I cannot imagine that those effects were the intention of the 2016 voters for “Leave”.
As the new UK Government has pledged to “make Brexit work better”, I think now is the time for our Governments and institutions to rebuild confidence and, whilst respecting our neighbours’ democratic choice in 2016, to collaborate towards repairing the unintended, detrimental consequences of Brexit.
In 2023, the Windsor Framework agreement marked a first step towards improving the trading rules for Northern Ireland, and to bring greater stability and clarity for businesses and people in the region.
Going forward, the areas where to look for increased collaboration would most profitably include mobility and more, better-working mutual recognition procedures in relation to a number of regulated products, services, industries and professions, and harmonised rules such as veterinary standards.
The broader political areas of security, defence, accommodation to climate change, energy, the prevention of pandemics, could, amongst other, soon be on a the discussion table between London and Brussels.
Assuming political momentum on both sides of the table, this effort will call for revising the current Trade and Cooperation Agreement, with all the legal and technical work that will go with it.
The Agreement actually includes a set of review dates and transitional periods, and provides for reviews of implementation every five years, with the first due in 2026. Even though that was meant to be essentially a review of how the Agreement has been implemented, that review can be seen as an opportunity to expand specific parts of it, if the parties so wish. And meanwhile, Governments have a possibility to work on agreements with more specific, technical and operational scopes.
I am convinced that lawyers who have developed intercultural skills as well as a sharp expertise of negotiating complex agreements, can bring a decisive contribution to this effort – and that does not have to wait until 2026 to start. As a partner in a UK-headquartered firm with 10 offices in the EU, serving premium operators in highly regulated industry across and beyond Europe, I can only think of a number of talented professionals who I trust would be happy to provide informed views to those who will be in charge of putting pen to paper. For example, lawyers who already worked in and after 2016 on helping clients navigate Brexit from the perspective of different legal and business areas (regulatory, trade and supply chain, tax and customs, corporate governance, HR and employment, intellectual property…) could helpfully provide technical support.
In the immediate future, it seems doubtful that the UK will be considering “rejoining” (the Customs Union, or the Single Market – let alone the European Union). However, if and when a next generation of voters and political representatives in the UK might be ready to open that more ambitious discussion, I believe it will be the EU citizens’ and institutions’ responsibility to stretch a friendly hand and work towards a “win-win” reunion – and here again, very much hope that talented lawyers on both sides of the Channel will be able to assist.
On that longer-term perspective, you may think I’m more of a dreamer than a lawyer… but I do hope that it will be simpler for businesses to trade across the Channel in the future – and that Alex, Jenny and their children can again tour Europe in the summer without counting days !
