An Irish farmers' leader has called for the United Kingdom to remain within both the Customs Union and the Single Market when it leaves the EU.
With less than a year to go until the UK's membership of the European Union comes to an end, the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is proving one of the most difficult issues to overcome in exit negotiations.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has said there will be no hard border between the two countries, but she has also insisted that the UK will leave both the Customs Union and the Single Market.
Farmers south of the border have expressed concern about what will happen post-Brexit. “It is clear that the agri-food sector is set to become a major battleground in the negotiations on the future relationship between the EU and the UK," said Joe Healy, president of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA).
“The Irish Government must prioritise our requirement that the UK maintains full regulatory alignment with the EU’s standards and common external tariff in the area of agriculture and food. Full regulatory alignment is necessary to avoid a hard border in Ireland and deliver the closest possible trading relationship between the EU and the UK, which is an outcome both sides have prioritised.
“The ideal solution is for the UK to remain in the Single Market and Customs Union. Short of this, we need an agreed framework whereby the UK remains fully aligned to European standards and trade policy. Our objective must be no border on the island of Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea. Otherwise, farm incomes will be hit and thousands of jobs lost in rural Ireland.”
Negotiators involved in the Brexit talks have agreed a transition deal until the end of 2020, with the UK abiding by existing EU rules, although without having any vote in the European Council or European Parliament.
Joe Healy has welcomed the transition agreement but says there needs to be rapid progress on the final deal to avoid what he described as a "disastrous no-deal scenario" in which the United Kingdom adopted a cheap food policy.
“While the transition period agreed earlier this month gives some certainty, that will only apply if agreement is reached on all other matters by October and approved within the next 12 months. Otherwise, we reach a cliff edge drop into the unknown that would be disastrous for all sides,” he said.
Hard border
Joe Healy recently met with farming leaders in the UK - NFU president Minette Batters; John Davies, NFU Wales president; Andrew McCornick, president of NFU Scotland and Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) president Barclay Bell.
He said it was clear that Irish and UK farmers were united in the desire to avoid a hard border. He said their view was that it would be devastating for farmers and bad for consumers if the UK was to cut its standards and aim for a cheap food policy.
UFU president Barclay Bell recently met with Theresa May and took the opportunity to press home the message. He said farmers and growers needed to know how the industry would be protected from cheap food imports; what arrangements would be made to maintain existing trade between the remaining members of the EU, Ireland and the UK; and how the industry would be supported.
“The Government has been hinting that it will do the right things – but farming is a long term industry that has to plan. Not knowing what trade arrangements will be in place or how it will be supported makes that impossible,” he said.
The UFU sought assurances that the 70 per cent of farm exports that go to the EU would be protected, even if the UK left the Customs Union and Single Market.
“We remain concerned about comments from the Government that it wants to be a free trading nation, as this suggests it wants food imports with minimal tariffs. However, we were encouraged by the Prime Minister’s recent speech on the UK’s future economic partnership with the EU.
“In it, she recognised the high environmental and animal welfare standards of the UK agri-food industry and that these standards will remain at least as high as the EU’s. This needs to become a firm policy before trade negotiations begin next March between the UK and countries outside the EU,” said Barclay Bell.
All-Ireland
He sought assurances that ways would be found to maintain the all-Ireland trade in agriculture and food, stressing that this existed long before the UK and Ireland joined the then EEC, and needed to continue after Brexit.
“We also made it very clear that we did not want to see the creation of any additional controls in the Irish Sea. GB is and will remain the main market for the Northern Ireland agri-food industry,” he said.
Joe Healy said that, as well as maintaining the closest possible tariff-free trading relationship for agri-food with the United Kingdom, it was important that an agreement was reached that maintained the value of the UK market for Irish farmers.
“Any outcome that allows the UK to set their own standards and cut tariffs on food imports from third countries would seriously devalue the British market for Irish agri-food exports and in turn destabilise the European food market," he said.
“We need to avoid a scenario where the British market is open to cheaper, inferior food products such as Brazilian beef, hormoned US beef or chlorinated chicken that displace or undermine our high quality Irish food exports produced to the highest EU standards,” he said.
Concerns were raised in the UK towards the end of last year when Wilbur Ross, the United States commerce secretary, told business leaders at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference in London that any post-Brexit deal with Washington would hinge on the UK scrapping rules set by Brussels, including regulations governing imports of chlorinated chicken.
More recently, there have been reports that Australia will demand access to the UK market for its hormone treated beef as part of any post-Brexit trade deal.
