Press

Pero en cierto sentido, Vladimir Putin y Donald Trump han hecho más por acercar al Reino Unido y a la Unión Europea que años de negociaciones sobre el Brexit. Porque pese a todo, señala Ian Bond, subdirector del Centre for European Reform, Londres y Bruselas comparten los mismos riesgos estratégicos.

Sander Tordoir, chief economist of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-EU British think-tank, said “You don’t want to get married to someone who you don’t know is committed to the relationship.”

Research seen by The Guardian has found goods exports to the bloc are 16 per cent lower than they would have been, while services sector exports are 7 per cent lower.  John Springford and Anton Spisak, of the Centre for European Reform, said the data shows the “overwhelming majority” has been caused by leaving the single market.

Analysis by the Centre for European Reform (CER) showed the UK’s travel sector saw the biggest drop in services exports, which slumped by 39%, while the UK’s agricultural and food goods exports plunged by 29%. The think-tank warned that Sir Keir’s EU reset would do little to reverse this economic damage. The Prime Minister’s reset is focused on a series of targeted agreements that should ease frictions in sectors such as agriculture and food but will leave the vast majority of the Brexit trade losses unaddressed, CER said.

Brexit also triggered what John Springford, another economist, calls “an investment strike”. For decades, Britain has nearly always had the lowest capital investment in the G7. Brexit uncertainty compounded this, causing investment to flatline for six years.

According to a widely-shared policy brief by the think-tank the Centre for European Reform (CER), China now accounts for roughly 30 per cent of global manufacturing output while consuming only 13 per cent of global output. 

 
John Springford, of the Centre for European Reform, said: “The investment strike started in 2016 and continued through to 2021-22, and then it started to rise again once certainty about the trading relationship had been established.
“That has an impact on productivity. It means workers don’t have the best kit, and existing capital [equipment and buildings] is deteriorating, so you certainly assign some of the GDP losses to that.
“Brexit is more a story of stagnation, and a slow puncture, than of recession and rising unemployment.”

Sander Tordoir and Brad Setser, in an analysis for the Centre for European Reform, think-tank, propose a European version of America’s Section 301 tool. This allows sweeping tariffs to counter practices harming American trade.