EU’s Offer Still Unacceptable
Reuters reports EU’s Trade Deal Offer to Britain ‘Remains Unacceptable’.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen both said on Friday that Britain was likely to complete its journey out of the EU in three weeks without a trade deal.
“Talks are continuing overnight, but as things stand the offer on the table from the EU remains unacceptable,” the British source said.
“The prime minister will leave no stone unturned in this process, but he is absolutely clear: any agreement must be fair and respect the fundamental position that the UK will be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ time.”
The two sides have set a deadline of Sunday to find agreement and prevent a chaotic break.
Deadline is Not Sunday
The deadline is not Sunday, December 13. The deadline is Thursday, December 31.
Johnson Not Bluffing
In case the EU has not figured this out, Boris Johnson is not bluffing about a willingness to leave with no deal.
Johnson was willing to bluff about not honoring the Withdrawal Agreement, but that was in response to a preposterous EU demand that Johnson give up all fishing rights and put itself at the mercy of the European Court of Justice in disputes.
Those are Johnson’s hard lines and he will honor them.
Deal Still Likely?
Despite what a flurry of articles say, I still suggest A Post-Brexit Trade Deal Now Looks Likely.
Please note that it’s only December 9.
There is plenty of time for more threats and more bluffs before a deal is reached.Even then it will not be the “final deal”. It will be a bare bones WTO agreement of some sort with provisions to haggle for years to come.
This is the only way the EU works, using the word “works” loosely.
The breakthrough on which I based my analysis was Johnson agreed to honor the Withdrawal agreement and the EU stopped its demands that Johnson could never agree to.
There now appears to be some EU backsliding.
If a deal does fall through, and it could, it will be a result of the EU underestimating the resolve of Boris Johnson once again.
So, despite the weakening prospects, it still looks like a deal is more likely than not.
December 13 is just not close enough to the true deadline to matter much.
Mish
Right now the talks boil down to who’s going to take the blame for no deal. It’s sad that the English got stuck with Boris as a negotiator (notice I don’t say UK, which is well on its way to disintegrating). Boris couldn’t sell fire to an eskimo. England, on the other hand, on January 1st will be alone and friendless with Scotland looking for an exit and a Biden admin that’s going to be more closely aligned with the EU.
Ministers warn supermarkets to stockpile food amid no‑deal Brexit fears link to thetimes.co.uk
In the end, a dispute resolution body needs to be accepted by both sides–UK courts, EU courts, WTO, or an entirely new one.
Each party obviously doesn’t want to be subject to the other, so WTO or an entirely new one has to be set up.
Well, the WTO has not been a quick, effective and powerful arbiter in trade matters and an entirely new one is so far beyond the initial agreements and not possible to stand up within the first few critical years of the new relationship. The only way for this to be resolved would be for the seller meet the demands of the cistomer. I’ll leave it to you to figure out who is the larger customer.
The fundamantal issue is that every agreement involves giving away sovereignty to achieve mutuality. And that miutuality allows the parties to live in agreement and have trade.
The UK is like one party in the divorce, insistent on the keys to the old housethat they moved out of so they can come and go as they wish even though they dont’ live there any more, have complete freedom to use the facilities, while denying similar priviledges to the divorced spouse, and still be able to have a say in what is acceptable for the party they left to do.
That’s the stage of the UK/EU negotiations.
It is obvious–leave doesn’t ultimately mean leave in the sense of never interacting again (thinkof the kids), there still has to be some sort of relationship. But this is the stage that the divorce lawyers bring it to court or arbitration, because the leaving party doesn’t want their life to be any different after they leave the marriage.
Serious horse-trading has to occur on a whole herd of issues. Fishing is a minor and faintly ludicrous one to hang up on–a small part of either’s economy and the fish come and go through ill-defined and not-so-accpeted EEZ’s. But there are far more serious issues like EU certifications that will need to be maintined in a third country, inspection precesses for goods and services, etc., customs, tariffs, shipping, trans-shipment from the EU (mainland) to UK to EU (Ireland) etc, etc.
The truth is, the only agreement that can be had at this point is a tolling ageement. But Johnson was the one that set the hard date and it would be embarrassing forhim to back down, so it probably won’t happen.
The second truth is that the UK/EU will need to have on-going, intensive negotiations for the next decade to continue to create a new relationship (just like a divorce, eh?).
A crah will occur at the end of this month in the absence of a tolling agreement–there is not enough groundwork laid for the outline of a new relationship.
Fishing should be minor but it could take the blame. Even then, Johnson is unlikely to give up all rights. If France demands that then coupled with other things it could wreck a deal.
But make no mistake about this: This whole mess is mostly the EUs fault every step of the way.
They could have tossed cameron a bone. They could have not tried a choke hole on Theresa May.
They could not have insisted that over time the UK would have to move to the Euro.
Boris Johnson rightfully stood up to all of that. I would cheer the demise of the EU.
It’s nothing like a divorce. It is an abrogation of a treaty and sovereignty is not “given away” forever. Certain parts are suspended for the duration of the treaty but never given away unless forced by war for example. The EU tried to use your argument about relative size to force it’s way but found out that it backfired. The EU is not the only trading block on Earth nor is it the largest but it is run by the dumbest functionaries. It can be replaced. EU country businessmen will still want to sell to sell to and buy from the UK if the conditions are right as in every business relationships. As for fish, look up who won the fish war between the UK and Iceland. Size doesn’t matter.
The UK was unprepared to negotiate–after joining the EU they had rendered redundant most of the personell capable and with the authority of negotiating on an international level. So they started out crippled. May was the fist to start to regognize that the UK would have to give to get–and so she was booted.
No sovereignty is not removed forever by an agreement, but the UK has to accept some rules governing the agreement for whatever term it is. So far, the UK wants everything they like and nothing they don’t like.
Well, a crash out can occur. And even if a small agreement is reached, there will be a lot of bending in the UK over the next decade. It’s power politics, and dear old Bligty doesn’t like it.
Barnier did not negotiate in good faith. He couldn’t because it was unspeakable that a country once in the EU cannot leave it even if by law they can. If you make it easy then many countries would like the same deal because the EU is still basically a free trade zone with aspirations of becoming an integrated entity, at least the big countries within think that. Other countries have other ideas.
“but the UK has to accept some rules governing the agreement for whatever term it is. So far, the UK wants everything they like and nothing they don’t like.”
So does the EU doesn’t it?
The EU is an anti free trade protectionist club, but despite this the UK already meets the EU’s Non Tariff barriers to trade because we’ve been members for 40 years. Like any other Nation the UK won’t however agree to mimic every bureaucratic law and regulation they might pass in future. Just because the EU area is larger, doesn’t give them the right to impose terms. We will agree to maintain quality standards and from a trade viewpoint that should be enough.
Unfortunately, the EU are still more concerned with the message any agreement sends to other members rather than doing what is best for the people. It’s a shame, the EU and it’s federalist ambitions trump everything else.
In the real world, a customer confronted with a field of suppliers–some that conform to their requirements, and some that do not–will choose the supplier that has what they want with the qualities they want.
That’s all.
Independent sovereign standards that other should accept?
Maybe if you were the only supplier of that item in the world.
If you don’t want to be part of something, then leave.
If you want to change something about that organization, stay and try to build consensus for change.
It’s far harder to get changes made when you say that you’re leaving or when you are outside.
“In the real world, a customer confronted with a field of suppliers–some that conform to their requirements, and some that do not–will choose the supplier that has what they want with the qualities they want.
That’s all.”
Agreed, what’s the problem then?
So, that’s the UK re EU
Top ten COVID states by total cases, not per capita…..should have mentioned that.
All that is from looking at WorldoMeter today.
That makes excess deaths at around 11% above normal.
Thanks for that. 11% is not too bad, considering it could be much worse.
Above and beyond getting this behind us, we should take COVID as a wake-up call, and a call to arms. The next one could be worse. That’s the real takeaway on COVID, imho.
Even back in January, I didn’t think this would be the Big One, that caused the 6th Mass Extinction. The numbers never indicated that.
But if it kills YOU, then you’re entire day is ruined…and as for me, I’d rather do what I can to avoid catching COVID, I am in a high risk group. And I love life, even thoughI’m not as young as I used to be.
Sure would like to get the edit function working again. Just sayin’
I agree to that. Eventually another will come and this crisis showed that the vast majority of countries have deep problems with controlling Covid. Of course a lot of that comes from the fact that it turned out to be not too deadly to merit something like the real killer plagues of before.
I can’t find anything about excess mortality there.
Where are you getting this information?
Excess mortality is not as easy as it looks. The information has to be granular (e.g., excess mortality due to a tsunami will show up in regional statistics, but not in national ones). Normal mortality has seasonal and regional variations, and peak and trough values need to be assigned a P-score, since mortality consistently varies around statistical averages. You are talking about 11%, but are not indicating whether this is due to malnutrition, drug overdoses, or other factors. Attribution of excess deaths needs to be related to various factors (more people die of heart attacks during cold and hot spells, more people die of respiratory illness during wind-still urban smog peaks, but cancer tends to be more evenly distributed).
Eddie, I don’t think the full impact of this has been felt yet in terms of the long term health consequences.
Up your alley, check out the video of Louie Gohmert apparently loosing a tooth in the middle of him talking. Apparently tooth-loss is a part of the covid wonderfulness.
I have read a lot about Covid consequences but I never heard of teeth falling out. Point me to the science please.
I have been reading these anecdotal stories about COVID related tooth loss. Thanks for mentioning that.
I am sure there is somebody in perio grad school who is, or soon will be, taking a look at that.
My gut says that COVID is probably just an exacerbating factor for ordinary periodontal (gum) disease….which is itself an inflammatory disease caused by bacterial plaque and calculus( mineralized plaque) on tooth root surfaces.
But that is just a guess. We have a very small cohort of patients now who have had COVID and recovered. So far I have not seen any dental problems in that group that I can associate specifically with COVID….but it’s way too soon to jump to any kind of conclusions about that.
Eddie, is this correct?
Grey tooth = dead nerve= loss of blood supply (no blood or pain when tooth fell out)
maybe part of damage to ciculatory system…
anecdote…
….Earlier this month, Farah Khemili popped a wintergreen breath mint in her mouth and noticed a strange sensation: a bottom tooth wiggling against her tongue.
Khemili, 43, of Voorheesville, New York, had never lost an adult tooth. She touched the tooth to confirm it was loose, initially thinking the problem might be the mint. The next day, the tooth flew out of her mouth and into her hand. There was neither blood nor pain.
Khemili survived a bout with COVID-19 this spring, and has joined an online support group as she has endured a slew of symptoms experienced by many other “long haulers”: brain fog, muscle aches and nerve pain.
There’s no rigorous evidence yet that the infection can lead to tooth loss or related problems. But among members of her support group, she found others who also described teeth falling out, as well as sensitive gums and teeth turning gray or chipping.
Grey tooth does equal non-vital tooth most of the time. Meaning no live pulp. Pulp is not just a nerve……it’s connective tissue and a special kind of epithelium…”nerve” is merely a euphemism for the dental pulp……nerves in the dental pulp (there are some) are too small to see without a microscope.
But…..teeth can be non-vital for years (decades sometimes) and not be symptomatic. Teeth falling out is typical of end stage periodontal disease…which occurs not because the pulp is dead….but rather because of a loss of supporting bone around the teeth. Teeth are supposed to be anchored in bone.
Periodontal disease is often a slow disease and there are no symptoms until the end stage, when teeth begin to loosen…..if someone had advanced periodontal disease, it is easy to see how an inflammatory disease like COVID might hasten the end….but it’s unlikely to be the the primary cause.
But it’s possible I suppose. As an example, in historic times sailors lost teeth from rapid onset periodontal disease due to a lack of vitamin C…. the British Navy began to hand out limes to prevent the disease (scurvy). They didn’t understand the disease process but they figured out how to treat it effectively anyway.
I wonder if the people losing teeth from COVID might be deficient in Vitamin C.
…Troyer discussed in a July paper she co-authored (titled “Are We Facing a Crashing Wave of Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of COVID-19?”), these neuropsychiatric conditions could last for years, decades, or even generations. The survivors of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 had double the chance of developing Parksinson’s disease later in life as those who had not come in contact with the virus. Long-term effects didn’t stop there: Those survivors’ grandchildren were also more likely to develop schizophrenia….
Off-topic but hopefully of interest :
Of the top ten high COVID states, Texas appears to be doing the best job of turning the curve back down…..looking very good overall with active cases statewide falling noticeably since Dec 8th,
Illinois and Michigan show signs of peaking now.
The bad news, the other top seven, CA,NY,PA,FL,GA,OH, and TN…..are all still going up. NY looks particularly bad.
And to report on again on the Dakotas …..both have clearly peaked now and numbers are falling in both states…..but ND with its mask mandate is falling much faster and with fewer upticks along the way.
Remember both states had very similar numbers when the mask mandate went into effect in mid November. At the moment freedom loving South Dakota has 3X the number of active cases as their neighbor just to the north. 4K vs 12K.
Still think masks don’t make a difference?
The numbers look ok but “‘It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future’” . Virginia was doing great but has taken a dive lately. NC went into the toilet in a matter of two weeks link to covid19.ncdhhs.gov. TX with a +13% positivity rate is not awesome. Hospitalization looks ok, but many hospitals are being careful only to admit those that seriously need it because they are worried about future capacity.
link to covid19.ncdhhs.gov.
Covid exit strategy has the zerohedge followers color of the US link to covidexitstrategy.org
the cynic in me would say that they will hatch a deal in the end and this talk of sending warships to protect English fishing zones, bottlenecks at ports, and shortages of food and medicines are part of a fear project to ease for a deal. He falsely claim that he fought hard for the deal.
It’s not the fish that’s the issue. It’s that they are a manifestation of sovereignty itself and therefore cannot be compromised. It is why the Brits voted to leave in the first place. It’s just endgame posturing now.
May old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind…….
The song they’ll be singing when the deal is struck.