[ianch99]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Barnier has said we can have a Canada style deal. Here is one report of his statement.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk...exit-deal-over

The NI border is a red herring and if we leave the EU without a deal, that problem remains, doesn't it?

The EU is concerned to get a deal with the UK because it has a large volume of its own exports hanging on this. And when I say a 'no deal' I mean no withdrawal agreement. Article 28 and the trade deal are both accepted as being options under a so called 'no deal' scenario.

But the Canada style deal excludes services:

https://www.ft.com/content/30705bfc-...2-916d4fbac0da

is expected to be based on the Canada trade deal, with little or no privileged access on services added. The “plus” would come from linked agreements on fisheries, aviation, security and foreign policy co-ordination, which are not included in the Canada-EU agreement.

Brexit Britain faces services squeeze with Canada-style deal

An accord that almost entirely deals with goods will offer only limited benefits. London and Brussels agree: for an idea of where Britain’s post-Brexit relations with the EU are heading, look to Canada.

As soon as the UK wound up its divorce talks last Friday, Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, said Britain’s demands to break with the bloc’s single market and customs union left no option other than a deal modelled on the 2016 goods trade-focused accord with Canada.

David Davis, Mr Barnier’s opposite number, told the BBC at the weekend that Britain was aiming at “Canada plus plus plus”, an agreement that would go much further in grafting on other sectors, notably services.

But Brussels insists that the UK faces a binary choice between participating in the single market, as Norway does, or a Canada-style deal.

The focus by both sides on the Canada accord highlights a particular problem for Britain: the limited benefits for a services-based economy of a treaty that almost entirely deals with goods.

Services account for 70 per cent of British output, and, more relevantly, 40 per cent of its exports.

And while there are limits to how well the EU services market functions — it lags well behind the bloc’s single market for goods — executives and economists say that British business would still feel the pain from leaving.

“Even if we are critical, it [the single market for services] is one of the EU’s biggest achievements,” says Arnaldo Abruzzini, chief executive of Eurochambres, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry. “There is no free-trade agreement that gives access in this same way.”

According to an internal European Commission document on Brexit, the Canada deal’s provisions on services merely reflect the “current state of openness applied (but not guaranteed) to all World Trade Organization members” — and does not cover sectors such as aviation or broadcasting.

The deal’s services chapter amounts to “no new access for Canada, in a word: nada”, says Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a think-tank.

The Canada agreement tackles overt discrimination against foreign ownership, but it does little to deal with lower-level barriers such as country-specific regulations.

“It essentially provides guarantees that the EU won’t impose restrictions that it doesn’t intend to impose anyway,” he says. “It is rules about rules — a guarantee of what WTO members already have.”