UK Maritime: Extend Brexit process

Business leaders support maritime sector call for a pragmatic deal that enables frictionless trade.    A shipping industry trade organization is urging the British government to extend the Article 50 process for leaving the European Union if a deal is not reached by October.
   In a press release issued last week, Maritime UK, which says its members facilitate 95 percent of U.K. trade, said it was “calling on on all parties to get behind the prime minister’s Chequers accord and for the European Union in turn to show pragmatism.”
   During a cabinet meeting in July at the prime minister’s country house, Chequers, the British government set out a plan for an exit from the European Union that included maintaining a “common rulebook for all goods” and “reciprocal commitments related to open and fair trade.”
   Forty-four percent of U.K. exports are to EU members, according to a report in Time.
   Maritime UK said a poll it commissioned of U.K. business leaders found two-thirds think it likely that the U.K. will leave the EU without a deal being reached, even though it said half of them support the Chequers agreement. It also found half of the business leaders questioned had not made preparations for a Brexit with no deal being reached.
   The survey found that the major no-deal concerns for business leaders are increased costs and supply chain disruption, including delays at ports.
   “We cannot accept that no deal is better than any deal,” said David Dingle, chairman of Maritime UK. “Business leaders from across the economy support the maritime sector’s call for a pragmatic Brexit deal that enables frictionless trade.”
   He said “failing to secure a deal will mean delays and disruption at ports like Dover, Holyhead and Portsmouth, but equally at EU ports including Zeebrugge, Calais and Dublin.”
   In another sign that Brexit may disrupt short sea shipping in Europe, Politico reports the European Commission has excluded French ports from plans to create shipping routes between the Continent and Ireland, which will remain part of the EU. The routes would avoid Britain and connect Rotterdam, Antwerp and Zeebrugee with Dublin and Cork.
   A politician from the north of France called passing up French ports “scandalous and unacceptable.” Xavier Bertrand, the president of the Hauts de France region that includes the ports of Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk, told the Telegraph newspaper he is urging the European Commission to review its decision.