EU Undecided About Post-Brexit Customs Grace Period for UK Goods, EU Official Says

The European Union has not yet decided whether to reciprocate the United Kingdom’s six-month grace period on import entry requirements after Brexit (see 2006120031), said João Vale de Almeida, the EU’s ambassador to the U.K. While de Almeida said the EU wants to be “forceful and systematic” in protecting its market, it is first focused on reaching a withdrawal agreement and will decide on customs issues later.

“Certainly we took note of the British decision, but we are not at the point in time where we neither wish nor need to take decisions on our side,” de Almeida said during a June 18 webinar hosted by Chatham House, a London-based think tank. De Almeida said the EU wants to reach a deal before “we start talking about the mechanisms of enforceability or implementation of that deal.”

De Almeida said both sides need to “accelerate” negotiations to allow time for ratification before Jan. 1. He said the EU hopes to finalize an agreement by the end of October but expressed concern about how long the process has taken, saying it has been “very difficult to disentangle something we've built together for 47 years.” He urged the U.K. to move forward with more urgency. “We now have to get down to work,” he said. “We need substance. We need the meat and the bones of the negotiating process. We need the United Kingdom to fully engage in a number of areas.”

Among other issues, de Almeida said he is “puzzled” by the U.K.’s reluctance to engage on certain national security issues, such as sanctions. He said the EU has offered to set up a “parliamentary cooperation mechanism” to promote foreign policy collaboration between the two governments, but said the U.K. opposed the mechanism. “I'm still trying to understand why the British position is against that,” he said. “We think it's obvious that there will be a sense and the need and usefulness for parliamentary cooperation.”

De Almeida said both U.K. and EU sanctions regimes will be stronger if they are coordinated. “If we have a framework for cooperation, which involves cooperation on sanctions, we’ll be much more effective when we want to collectively address a particular situation,” he said. De Almeida pointed to EU sanctions on Russia, calling it “remarkable” that the EU has sustained pressure on the country “in spite of all the differences among” member states. “It tells a lot about how much we can do when we are united,” he said. “My hope is that … we’ll find a balance in our relationship with Russia in the near future, hopefully with the U.K. very close by.”