Daily Times

LONDON: Britain will seek a “temporary customs union” with the European Union after Brexit, the government said Tuesday as it prepared to publish its first detailed proposals on the future partnership.

The government said it would seek to agree a “time-limited period of implementation” after leaving the EU to provide certainty for businesses and allow new customs arrangements to be set up. The Department for Exiting the EU said Britain wanted to be able to sign free trade agreements with third countries during this period, although these would only be implemented at the end of it.

The proposal was welcomed by the Confederation of British Industry, Britain’s big business lobby, but opposition parties dismissed it as “fantasy”.

Brexit minister David Davis told BBC radio that the transition period could last “something like two years” and would have to be over by the time of the next general election, which is set for 2022.

Britain says its membership of the EU customs union, which currently allows for the tariff-free movement of goods, will end along with its membership of the single market when it leaves the bloc in March 2019.

After that “one possible approach would be a temporary customs union between the UK and the EU,” the Brexit ministry said in a statement, ahead of the publication of the full paper later on Tuesday.

Experts have warned it will be extremely difficult to negotiate a new EU-UK free trade agreement before Britain leaves the bloc — particularly as Brussels has so far refused even to start trade talks.

It says there must be broad agreement first on three key issues — Britain’s financial settlement, the issue of expatriate rights, and the question of the border between British-controlled Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Asked about the divorce bill on Tuesday, Davis said that Britain would meet “any real international obligations” but added that “there won’t be a number by October or November”.

Published in Daily Times, August 16^th 2017.