Press

Sam Lowe, trade expert at the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, said that since the UK was unlikely to diverge from EU goods rules in practice in most areas, it made sense to continue to allow CE-marked goods to be sold in the UK, both now and far into the future.

Referring to the agreement Brussels reached with the Trump administration at the time, Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, wrote on Twitter: "When I’ve been saying the UK and US could do a mini trade deal this year, this is the sort of thing I was talking about."

Some observers believe that the Single Market aspect, while genuine, is not the main reason for the Commission’s stance. In a recent blog, Zach Meyers and Camino Mortera-Martinez of the Centre for European Reform (CER) think tank argue that, “A more likely explanation for the Commission’s reticence to allow the UK to re-join the convention is that Britain remains a difficult partner for the EU on a range of issues, not least in honouring its own word.”

 “It was not the Americans who ended the siege of Sarajevo: it was the British and the French on the ground,” said Charles Grant from the Centre for European Reform. 

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said the French were “definitely annoyed with the Brits” and this had led to a reluctance to agree to the bridge-building exercise.“The British want a summit. The French say, ‘Great — so what should we talk about?’ The British say, ‘I don’t know — let’s have a summit.’ The French say, ‘No — we’ve got to have substance.’ ”

“The post-pandemic boom will subside next year once everyone has done their pent-up spending but by then governments will reduce their fiscal spending,” says Christian Odendahl, the Berlin-based chief economist at the Centre for European Reform think-tank. “This reminds me of 2010 and 2011, when Germany and others switched to austerity too soon.”  

Sam Lowe, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, argued that a Swiss-style deal of this kind would leave the UK “permanently bound to EU food hygiene rules”, but in return there would be no more need for export health certificates and other red tape.

“In truth, the ECB is not delivering on its new strategy,” said Christian Odendahl, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank. “It seems the ECB just wanted to wait for inflation to come, instead of pushing hard for it.”