AFP, Brussels :
Hammering out a trade deal between EU and post-Brexit Britain will be a one-of-a-kind negotiation, a battle between intimate allies unprecedented in modern history, officials and analysts say.
Recent EU free trade agreements including ones with Canada and South Korea have taken at least five years to achieve, with negotiators bogged down in both tiny details and major headaches.
Efforts to reach a trade deal with the US have taken even longer and now stalled-but insiders say Brexit could top the lot when it comes to difficulty.
Lurking over the trade talks is the prospect of no deal, known as “hard Brexit”, a legal void that most observers believe could have grave consequences for Britain, but also the EU.
An EU-Britain deal would be the “biggest free trade deal ever struck, … that goes far deeper than what happens for EU-Canada or EU-Korea,” Ivan Rogers, who stepped down as Britain’s ambassador to the European Union in January, told British MPs last month.
Both deals were followed by a bruising ratification process by the EU’s national governments.
British Prime Minister Theresa May launched the two-year Brexit process on Wednesday, with the European Union insisting that issues like Britain’s exit bill and the fate of EU citizens in Britain must be settled first.
But once those issues are settled, Britain and the EU will seek to sketch out a new future in the form of a far-reaching trade deal to cover all the issues currently covered by the single market.
Many in the EU have warned that it will be impossible to reach a deal before Britain leaves the EU in 2019, meaning it will need a transitional period under still-to-be-determined terms before a full agreement can be reached.
European Parliament Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt recommended limiting any such transition to three years after Brexit.
But Rogers warned that London would stand far weaker on trade than the “world class” and highly experienced EU, with the British government having had no negotiators since the 1970s when it joined the bloc.
Some pro-Brexiters in Britain argue that an EU deal make light of the challenges.
Hammering out a trade deal between EU and post-Brexit Britain will be a one-of-a-kind negotiation, a battle between intimate allies unprecedented in modern history, officials and analysts say.
Recent EU free trade agreements including ones with Canada and South Korea have taken at least five years to achieve, with negotiators bogged down in both tiny details and major headaches.
Efforts to reach a trade deal with the US have taken even longer and now stalled-but insiders say Brexit could top the lot when it comes to difficulty.
Lurking over the trade talks is the prospect of no deal, known as “hard Brexit”, a legal void that most observers believe could have grave consequences for Britain, but also the EU.
An EU-Britain deal would be the “biggest free trade deal ever struck, … that goes far deeper than what happens for EU-Canada or EU-Korea,” Ivan Rogers, who stepped down as Britain’s ambassador to the European Union in January, told British MPs last month.
Both deals were followed by a bruising ratification process by the EU’s national governments.
British Prime Minister Theresa May launched the two-year Brexit process on Wednesday, with the European Union insisting that issues like Britain’s exit bill and the fate of EU citizens in Britain must be settled first.
But once those issues are settled, Britain and the EU will seek to sketch out a new future in the form of a far-reaching trade deal to cover all the issues currently covered by the single market.
Many in the EU have warned that it will be impossible to reach a deal before Britain leaves the EU in 2019, meaning it will need a transitional period under still-to-be-determined terms before a full agreement can be reached.
European Parliament Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt recommended limiting any such transition to three years after Brexit.
But Rogers warned that London would stand far weaker on trade than the “world class” and highly experienced EU, with the British government having had no negotiators since the 1970s when it joined the bloc.
Some pro-Brexiters in Britain argue that an EU deal make light of the challenges.
