The third remote CoR-UK Contact group served as a first assessment of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement with regards to impact on local and regional authorities.
Speaking during an update on Trade negotiation Danuta Hübner, Member of the European Parliament from the EPP Group spoke about the challenges faced, in particular given the situation of undoing 47 years of EU membership of a country that has been a standard-bearer globally. She said that the EU focused in the negotiations on protecting the single market. However, the agreement is lacking in such areas as mutual recognition of professional qualifications, data and financial services.
Hübner said that geography matters and that both EU Member States and the UK will remain important neighbors. She spoke on the need to look in a more dynamic way on the future relationship between the EU and the UK.
Michael Murphy, Councillor of Tipperary County and ECON Chair welcomed the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, that avoided a cliff edge Brexit many feared. He described the agreement as one that protects the single market that is so important for the prosperity of regions and one that ensures fair competition that is crucial for SMEs and family owned businesses that are at the heart of regions. He added that the agreement does not represent the status quo and that there will be change.
Speaking on multi-level governance Murphy said "There is growing recognition of the consequences on a day-to-day level for all levels of government in dealing with and especially responding creatively and efficiently to what the UK's departure means in practice." The head of the Irish Delegation said that awareness-raising campaigns, support programmes for replacement of markets and port authorities are often driven with regional and local authorities in the lead.
He drew attention to the monitoring of the agreement and in particular the Partnership Council and its provisions and rules of procedure saying that this could be an appropriate mechanism for setting up formal arrangements between the UK and the EU for local and regional government, in line with the spirit of flexibility and pragmatism within the agreement.
Members also discussed Cross-border and inter-regional cooperation. Ellen Nauta-Van Moorsel, Mayor of Hof van Twente spoke on the good cooperation the CoR had with UK LRAs. She said that it is unfortunate that it is not anymore possible to cooperate in the way that we used to such as via interreg. van Twente stressed that work was needed to prevent loss of close ties adding that the Contact Group provides a continuation of the dialogue with UK LRAs. Nauta concluded "Now that consequences of a new relation between the EU and the UK are clear, we might need to take this one step further, meaning not only to continue to dialogue, but also to examine how future cooperation can be shaped. I encourage UK LRAs to share their ideas on future inter-regional cooperation."