Brexit

Context – The decision of the United Kingdom to leave the EU will have significant impacts on the EU and its policies. For the moment no one can define the real impacts both for the EU and UK. All EU policies need to be revised, background calculations revised and a separate UK-EU bilateral trade agreement to be defined and negotiated. This is valid for the agriculture sector as well. The key impacts of the Brexit will be in the area of the EU budget (re-opening the negotiations on financing EU policies), subsequently on the level of individual EU policies, including CAP. Access to markets (exports and imports to the UK) will need to be defined in coming months and years.

Timing – the activation of an Article 50 of the Treaty is fully in the hands of the UK Government. If Britain triggers Article 50 in March 2017, then the UK is scheduled to leave the EU by the end of March 2019. By that time the EU should have a clear vision how to reflect internal EU policies without UK presence, including EU budget. In parallel, UK and EU will discuss about future trade relations and UK´s access to the EU internal market, including the one for agriculture products. And in the meantime, UK will have to define its own agriculture policy, including the financial mechanisms.

Key challenges – AIF considers Brexit issue as one of the critical elements for the discussion on the future budgetary setup of the EU, that will also significantly influence the future of the CAP and the fiscal arrangements inside the new agricultural policy post-2020. Therefor AIF follows closely the development of Brexit for its members and provides information channel towards the members who identify future challenges, opportunities, risks and policy implications, both on the EU internal market and the individual UK market as well.