The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (ATT) between the European Union and the United Kingdom will be crucial, highlighted an analysis by the European Parliament.
On December 30, 2020, the EU and the UK signed the ATT, concluding almost 10 months of negotiations.
As of January 1, 2021, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement is provisionally applied.
If the European Parliament accepts the decision of the European Council concluding the agreement, the ATT will form the cornerstone of a new future relationship between the EU and the UK, as it creates a single framework covering a wide range of areas. of economic activity and cooperation, and allows the expansion of these areas.
Much of the ATT is made up of chapters dealing with economic activity.
First, trade in goods is expected to take place under zero tariff and quota conditions, although trade will now be subject to non-tariff barriers such as rules of origin.
In digital commerce, the ATT safeguards the primacy of data protection and privacy standards, and provides for the prohibition of customs duties on electronic transmission, as well as data localization requirements.
Commerce
The energy chapters grant access to wholesale markets and provide a framework for developing rules on the management of electricity and gas interconnectors; The key principles of EU law will continue to apply.
In road and air transport, the TCA allows operators to provide services from points in the EU to points in the UK and vice versa, with a limited number of road transport operations allowed in the territories of others.
Regarding the movement of people, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement allows short-term tourism without a visa and facilitates temporary migration for commercial purposes; it also provides for the coordination of social security for pensions, among other things.
Likewise, in fisheries, the ATT provides for a gradual change of quotas from the EU to the UK, worth a quarter of the value of EU catches in UK waters, beyond which they can only be changed by mutual consent.
The ATT also provides compensatory measures in the event of reduced access to water, for example, through tariffs.
Finally, the negotiations dealt only marginally with financial services.
