CECE & Brexit preparedness

In order to gather more insight and information, CECE’s Riccardo Viaggi attended the EURIS Summit on Brexit that took place in London on 11^th and 12^th September. The event successfully combined a political dimension, thanks to UK Government and Parliament representatives with relevant industry-based input offered by corporate CEOs and trade associations’ representatives.

The seminar was the occasion for the presentation of a new EURIS report on Brexit, which includes a survey of the UK manufacturing industry (from SMEs to multinationals) to support EURIS recommendations for a business friendly Brexit. This is the most detailed supply chain survey of its kind ever undertaken and highlights the hidden impacts of Brexit.

During the seminar, all industry speakers reiterated the call to UK political decisionmakers to reach a deal with the EU in order to prevent a disorderly Brexit at the end of March 2019. Also unanimously, industry alerted on the very dangerous uncertainty surrounding all areas of business that, according to some, is leading companies to take costly decisions that may prove unnecessary.

MP Robin Walker, Minister in charge of the Department for Exiting the EU presented UK’s proposals for a common rulebook to retain UK/EU regulatory alignment, a major request by industry. A direct consequence of this, according to the UK government, is the possibility to retain access to the standardisation/certification/compliance system at the core of the EU Single Market. In the Minister’s words, this approach relies also on BSI remaining the national standardisation body and a full member of CEN-CENELEC.

This point was confirmed by Richard Collin of BSI. The British Standards Institution is indeed working to retain full membership into the European standards organisations. This requires a change in the Statutes of CEN and CENELEC, but a Brexit working group has been set up by both organisations to assess how this will be achieved.

While approving of the overall goal of regulatory alignment, European industry representatives called into question the probability of EU’s acceptance of such a setup. Indeed, while Commission President Juncker confirmed that the UK will “never be an ordinary third-country” for the EU, a series of concessions would have to made for this to actually be put in place. 

A transition deal needs to be agreed by the end of 2018, in order to be ratified by end of March 2019 by both EU and UK political institutions. This deal seems within grasp and some steps forwards have been made, giving the ability to discuss on concrete proposals, but overall, as a speaker put it during the EURIS Summit, 810 days have gone by since the Brexit referendum and uncertainty seems to be the keyword.