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Originally Posted by nomadking
The pre-Dec 2020 of the withdrawal agreement deals with all this. The contentious issue is what happens afterwards and who has control.
Any checks are already made to goods coming into the UK. Anything that goes into the Republic of Ireland is a matter for them and the EU, NOT the UK. It is NOT for the EU to be dictating what we do on our side of any border.
Who should the EU trust more, the UK which had been part of it for decades or certain countries over in the East of Europe?
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There can be a few veterinary and phytosanitary checks on intra-EU moves but that's it. Show a declaration of conformity and off you go. As you said, it isn't likely that things will change much post transition but an exporter will need to prove that goods shipped still comply with EU regulations. If we do change our standards and diverge from EU ones, then that will create another tier of standards manufacturers will need to comply with. If we work to a two tier system, then the EU will need to inspect goods to see if they comply with their rules or our rules before letting them in. Of course we do this now for non-EU imports but suddenly there's a lot more goods that need checking going both ways. If we stick to the EU rules,we still need to prove that we do.
The question will always be where do manufacturers want to concentrate on and what gives the best margins? The EU market is bigger than the UKs so production lines will be slanted towards making goods for the EU market. Look at the Tesla Model 3 - there's a good reason why you can't buy a right hand drive model - the US, China and EU are much bigger markets than the UK, Japan, South Africa and Australia.
In international relations and business, there's no such thing as 'trust'. Treaties, agreements and rules are needed along with enforcement and conciliation. That's the EU in a nutshell - a series of treaties along with rules that help implement and facilitate the functioning of those treaties.
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I send out the EU declarations of conformity all the time as part of my job. Just for chuckles, I wondered if you can get declarations of conformity online for anything and started with Cars. Ford charge €119 + VAT for theirs but Vauxhall let you download them for free. Here's one for for a 2019 Astra -
https://www.vauxhall.co.uk/content/d...tra_K_MY19.pdf 247 pages! They have kindly translated it into every language in the EU which is a legal requirement if requested which does explain some of the size.