In the longest day to date, Brussels greets you. Given the blockade and all the circumstances, it seems to be a long year indeed. We are already looking forward to Christmas.Today’s main content is about an interesting question raised by both parties Sausage related The suffering caused by Brexit to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and Switzerland’s recent decision to withdraw from the Brexit negotiations Framework Agreement With the European Union. Can Brussels show some flexibility in recognizing the regulation of non-EU countries?

Regarding food-related rules, we should note (quite vaguely)”Agree in principle”In the UK and Australia bilaterally announced that they do not include their mechanism consider, That is, the United Kingdom grants lower tariffs in exchange for Australian farmers to achieve higher animal welfare and environmental standards.It happens, as we explain here Twitter topic, The risk of British farmers being weakened by such standards is small. There is also no indication that the UK’s rules for banning the use of hormones to feed beef and other foods will change. However, in the process of abandoning differential tariffs, the UK has actually given up potentially important tools for future transactions with trading partners such as the Mercosur and the United States. These problems may be serious.

Concession waters Look at the decline in timber prices.

Hygienic Standard for Sea Sausage

The situation in Northern Ireland is not good. The largest political party, the Democratic Unity Party, Lost the leader After three weeks of work, the province may be cut off Serving sausage Cross the Irish Sea from England. If a country crosses the open border directly to the southern part of Northern Ireland, there are a large number of road intersections and a world-class pork product industry, but they are a break.

Obviously, the Boris Johnson administration is accusing the European Union (it seems to think it has been captured by Irish interests, or may be rudely treating Ireland’s real interests, depending on which day you ask) for its critical attitude to the tactics of implementing the Northern Ireland Agreement. Obviously, the UK is largely talking, uh, nonsense. The British government knows exactly what it is signing or should sign, and should be very familiar with the strict procedures for inspecting imports to protect the single market, especially since the UK has helped a lot in creating it in the first place.

Nevertheless, it is not just the Brexit people who want to know whether the EU should move towards mutual recognition standards (across selected areas, not necessarily including food), rather than automatically accepting products in the single market and suspicion of maintaining between those people Other countries over the clear boundary, except for some special circumstances such as Ukraine, are exceptions. The breakdown of negotiations with Switzerland, a more constructive and enthusiastic partner than the United Kingdom, may trigger some thinking.

There is a very attractive paper, Electricity surplusKalypso Nicolaidis and Ignacio Garcia Bercero are professors of international relations at Oxford University and senior officials of the European Commission’s Trade Bureau, respectively. Garcia was the chief negotiator with the United States in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, where you can learn a thing or two about incompatible regulatory regimes (by the way, this paper largely reflects In addition to Garcia’s own views, not the commission policy, nor does he necessarily endorse the impact of Brexit).

The newspaper believes that the EU’s export of its rules may become increasingly difficult. Traditionally, it is achieved by explicitly setting standards in global institutions (for example, car safety) or bilateral trade agreements, or through the “Brussels effect” implicitly by requiring exporters exporting to the European Union to comply with regulations that subsequently become international norms. (Think chemical regulations, data protection). But China is now a competitive international rule maker, and the EU does not necessarily have the advantage of leading the market or leading producers in terms of digital or green technology.

The author believes that the European Union has adopted the concept of “legal empathy” and has dialogue with other legal and regulatory systems to see if the differences between them can be managed, and whether the rules are considered to be actually equivalent instead of insisting Think they are the same.

Brexit also provides a good starting point and a very bad starting point for this discussion. Very good, because the UK has withdrawn from the EU in accordance with EU regulations, which means that even if procedures must be established, the essence of mutual recognition should be clear. British regulators are accustomed to talking with their EU counterparts, and a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) between the two has been established to deal with regulatory differences. This is really bad, because any procedure based on negotiation and trust will be difficult to overcome the double transaction habit of the Johnson administration.

Nevertheless, it is a good practice for the EU to try to develop some systems with the UK to combine risk assessment, supply chain monitoring and labelling, which will allow frozen meat and other agricultural products to travel between the UK and the North. Make trade. Ireland without London will either fully join the EU food safety system (which will cancel almost all inspections), or Brussels will treat British regulations and enforcement as narrowly equivalent (will cancel very few).

But you can see that the EU is unwilling to deal with such a government Betrayed its company over border inspection issues And tried to accuse Brussels of abiding by its very clear rules.

Is it possible for the EU to adopt a more flexible approach, whether it is with the UK or other trading partners? There may be some small compromises on the Northern Ireland issue, but in principle the case has not yet been finalized in Brussels. There is a strong ideology that anything close to single market treatment means being bound by the EU legal order, including the European Court of Justice or other things that are largely governed by it.In part, this external rigidity reflects the internal Fear of weakness: Reduce regulatory autonomy, the feeling is gone, and the system starts to wear out.

This is unfortunate because it is not yet clear whether the status quo is beneficial to the EU or can indeed continue indefinitely. As the Brussels effect may weaken, purity does not necessarily continue to mean power. The EU even disagrees that such a dialogue is not a good thing.

Concession waters

Remember the wood boom? When the U.S. supply chain is in trouble and the DIY boom causes timber prices to soar?Things got so bad that at some stage, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai was asked Cut tariffs On timber felled in Canada.

It seems that the craze is over, and prices are falling like er wood. this is The complete story.

Trade ties

Have a Fascinating works On the Wall Street Journal ($, subscription required) American difficulties Increasing Domestic rare earth production, Which shows that supply chain diversification is more difficult than it seems.It’s not surprising that Washington tried to challenge China’s dominance In the extraction and processing of rare earths, it is very important for the production of rare earths electric car with smart phone. More information about China’s dominance Here.

FT overview. Margaret Vestag EU Competition Commissioner, Defensive Brussels Technology Policy Against being accused Anti-American. Amin Raschelt Backrest Germany does not want to take a hard line against China (or Russia)The new CDU leader and possible Merkel replacement sound a lot like the current prime minister here. We suspect that Joe Biden will not like that.

Some reactions G7 plan, Unveiled in Cornwall last week, Challenge China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative after put up Its own “green” version. Think Tank CSIS Believe Any plan to replicate Beijing’s massive infrastructure in developing countries requires a series of financing projects. Merics Think Tank Watching Previous attempts to challenge the initiative and lessons learned.

Nikkei report ($) that Thai government Efforts are being stepped up to regain the country’s status as the world’s largest Plain rice Exporters reduce export surcharges and improve rice varieties. Alan Beatty and Claire Jones

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