U.K., EU look to maintain WTO status following Brexit split

The two entities sent a joint letter reaffirming their allegiance to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and expressing a desire to minimize trade disruptions despite the United Kingdom’s impending withdrawal from the European Union.    The European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom submitted a joint letter to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday, expressing their intentions to maintain existing levels of market access to other WTO members and to “minimize disruption to trade” in light of their impending Brexit split.
   “The U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU has implications beyond the EU and the U.K.’s bilateral relationship. The EU and the U.K. acknowledge the need for clarity and predictability towards their trading partners in the multilateral trading system,” the two entities said in the joint letter.
   The U.K. acknowledged that it will have its own separate schedules of commitments for goods and services upon leaving the EU in March 2019 as well as to replicate its obligations under the current commitments of the EU. Regarding the maintenance of existing market levels, both parties said that, “the future EU’s (excluding the U.K.) and the U.K.’s (outside the EU) quantitative commitments in the form of tariff-rate quotas be obtained through an apportionment of the EU’s existing commitments, based on trade flows under each tariff-rate quota.”
   The two countries agreed to work together to establish separate service schedules in the U.K. and to determine the remaining commitments to the EU once it formally leaves the union.
   The U.K. notified the EU of its intention to withdraw from the union on Mar. 29 and negotiations have been ongoing ever since. Until its formal removal in 2019, the U.K. will remain a member state within the union with all rights and obligations to the EU’s Common Commercial Policy.
   Among the major items on the negotiating table is the recent proposal from the U.K. regarding a customs arrangement that may eliminate the need for border checks on imports and exports after Brexit.