So the EU account for an absolute majority of imports and something like 47% of
I made a thing to illustrate clearly the data behind my point
As time has moved on Europe has grown less and less important for the UK and more and more restrictive. Still very important, but not as important as the Americas, BRICS and the Commonwealth - there is simply more opportunities abroad, much larger export markets abroad than in Europe, whose economic growth has been much slower (or in the case of the Med nations, horrendous). Meanwhile the EU nations have increased their share in the British market and with external tariffs as they are, have much reduced competition with our older trading partners, actively making it so that we cannot choose the most efficient and qualitative products and services over the most european products and services. The benefit to British exporters to European markets does not outweigh the twofold cost of Europe's protectionism and the simple fact that we can't negotiate trade deals with our trading partners and the EU has failed to allow us to do so on our own behalf, leading to an obvious question: Why are we better off trading with lesser prospects than with older allies and richer prospects? If we can't negotiate trade deals that take advantage of the Anglosphere, the developing world and the Commonwealth we are terribly wasting the opportunities available to us, abandoning the majority of our trading opportunities to protect European industries that give little to us in service or capital. We're kinda getting fucked by such a system - notably, this system stops being beneficial to the UK after the 08 crash and the eurozone crisis. In review, unchecked derivative trading and a rigid European market had the consequence of the Europeans learned the value of sovereignty once more and European growth stopped being so pleasant.
Our average yearly growth and export rate respectively to the EU was 2.54 and -0.71 whilst for the world it was 1.07 and 5.04, the UK's future is with the world. Maybe this gives hopes to European federalists such as yourself, in that the UK was an anomaly that did not fit within the European Union's model, whilst the rest of the nation states within the EU only have credit and trade deficit issues to surmount?
Ok, so it's only around 50% if you average the last years. Not that surprising given that the EU only account for 15-20% of world GDP. Still, it's by far your bigger trading partner and unless you guys fuck up Brexit immensely will remain so, even if its importance will diminish as the rest of the world grow richer.
First, it doesn't, and I do not rejoice in the EU being able to artificially support European industries in British markets through protectionism. Second, you're looking at the tariff rate for Electronic integrated circuits and trying to suggest that's representative of the European Union, not sure if an honest mistake or just dogeposting.
There is enough overlap between BRICS, America and Commonwealth that I'm too lazy to try to come up with that exact figure, but given that trade with the EU accounts for almost 50%, that would mean that the share of your trade with the world outside BRICS/Americas/Commonwealth (including much of SE asia, Japan, Korea, the Arab World...) account for less than a few percents of your total trade.
As for the electronics, it was an answer to your (unsourced, unfounded) complain that British business were forced to buy more expensive German components because of the terrible EU.
No, seriously, the EU is less protectionist than most major economies.
Ah, you're doing it again. Using tariff rates on manufactured products to represent the entirety of the European Union - manufactured goods are one of the EU's most liberalized industries.
Manufactured goods tend to be the bulk of trade. Agricultural products are tiny in comparison. Services like finances are bigger for the UK, but with them the probelm is usually more regulatory than tariffs. Anywau, I was playing with different indicators trying to decide which to post, I think I made a mistake, because I wanted to post
this one for average tariffs, which shows us being one of the best tied with the US instead of overall less protective.
/snip, because it's a pain to read in the response window
I don't necessarily disagree on some of those but generally: A) Those tariffs are quite small by international standards, the EU is hardly the protectionist monster you make it seems to be. B) It's not clear the UK outside the EU will turns out to be a champion of free-trade. The people that voted to "take back control" probably won't be happy to sign stuff like TTIP (after all, regulatory barriers are much more significants than the tariffs in the low single digits). Lower tarifss on food is very well, but will May be willing to take on the National Farmer Union?
You may find this report interesting, it was used by our gov and they came to the conclusion that in spite of its flaws, EU membership was worthwhile for as long as the UK was able to push reform through the EU, particularly in regards to non-tariff external barriers and the services sector. This was also before David Cameron renegotiated with the EU and returned to the UK with none of the reforms he requested. They also set the costs of exporting to the EU using a weighted average for the Common External Tariff + Admin costs at 8.7%, excluding any effect from EU subsidizing European companies - thus you can see why the UK is particularly concerned about the EU controlling who is allowed to import to it, whilst in France the sentiment is quite in the opposite direction, and in Germany, very popular.
I'm amazed by our ability to read the same sentences and understand them differently. When I read this:
This note considers the impact of EU membership on trade and
consequent welfare effects.
Trade is a key driver of growth, and the reduction of barriers to trade
between Member States would be expected to result in increased trade
and growth. Straightforward high-level observations show an initial
boost from accession to the UK’s trade with the EU as a share of GDP.
However, the impact later on is less obvious, particularly following the
Single Market reforms, where one would expect to observe an increase
in intra-EU trade. Given data constraints and other influencing factors,
it is hard to develop an accurate counterfactual to see what would have
happened to trade had the UK not become a member of the EU. Using
Norway and Switzerland as comparators is also problematic. Instead,
econometric examination of the observable impact of EU membership
shows a significant and positive impact on the UK’s trade – membership
initially boosted UK trade with the EU by 7%, outweighing trade
diversion. The Single Market was seen to boost intra-EU trade by a
further 9% (although this may be an under-estimate).
Further benefits are also likely from reduced trade barriers that would
not be observed looking at trade flows. The threat of greater
competition in a more contestable market impacts firm behaviour, and
there is evidence of reduced price-cost margins following the Single
Market reforms. There is also evidence of some price convergence
between Member States.
However, barriers to trade still remain, in particular in services sectors,
and the EU’s protection of agriculture is also damaging. This implies
that there are still greater trade benefits to be reaped from EU
membership if the UK remains a force for reform in the Union.
I read "the EU is good for the UK and could become even better if they rip service trade barriers", not "the EU is good if we can get reforms done" as you seems to.
(BTW, I didn't read the FT article because paywall, I assume it was about aluminum like the Euractiv one?)
Edit: Sorry, I fucked up my quotes.
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