THE UK Government is not planning to participate in a pan-European trade agreement touted by an EU trade chief as an option for the UK, a minister has said.
It comes after an EU trade chief said the European Union could consider the UK joining a continent-wide trade agreement, as Sir Keir Starmer’s Government seeks a reset with the bloc.
Maros Sefcovic, who led post-Brexit negotiations for the EU, told the BBC the UK joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (PEM) is “something we could consider”.
However, asked if the UK could join the PEM, housing minister Matthew Pennycook told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’re not seeking to participate in that particular arrangement."
The PEM allows for tariff-free trade of goods across Europe, as well as some North African and Levantine nations.
Some business groups have backed the UK joining PEM as it would help to maintain complex supply chains, but the previous Conservative Government chose not to pursue it as part of a post-Brexit trade agreement.
Pennycook added: “I think in general the Government’s been very clear … that we do want a closer relationship with our European partners, both in trading terms, but also importantly – and this speaks to your previous segment – in terms of security and defence co-operation, where we need to work far more closely.
“So absolutely, yes, we do want a closer relationship. As for this particular arrangement: no, we’re not seeking to participate in it at the present time.”
Speaking to the BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sefcovic had said the idea had not yet been “precisely formulated” and that the “ball is in the UK’s court”.
The UK Government had begun consulting with businesses on the benefits of the PEM plan and how it could help cut red tape and improve trade, the BBC said.
Sefcovic (above) also told the broadcaster he would like to see the possibility of a full-scale veterinary agreement between the EU and UK reviewed.
If UK food and farm products were given single market treatment, he said it would mean “we would have to have the same rules and we have to upgrade them at the same time, we call it dynamic alignment”.
The lack of a veterinary agreement after Brexit has been a major sticking point for UK food businesses hoping to export to Britain’s nearest neighbours.
Dame Emily Thornberry, chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the UK’s post-Brexit trade settlement with the trade bloc had “all kinds of holes” in it.
The Labour MP added: “Within that agreement there is a mechanism for improving it, and we need to seize that opportunity, because we need to make sure that within the constraints of the vote to leave the European Union, we nevertheless do everything that we can to get rid of barriers to trade with our nearest neighbours and the people who we trade with the most.”
The “uneven and difficult” situation with veterinary checks needed to be resolved, she added.
