Britain’s
ambition to sign a quick Free Trade Agreement with the European Union after
Brexit has received a significant boost after a
landmark ruling by the European
Court of Justice handed expanded trade negotiation powers to Brussels.
The
much-anticipated decision
from the court in Luxembourgsurprised experts by ruling that on key areas -
including financial services and transport - the European Union does not need to
seek ratification of a trade deal by the EU’s 38 national and local
parliaments.
Trade
experts said the ECJ ruling could substantially reduce the risk of any future
EU-UK free trade agreement getting bogged down in the EU national parliaments,
opening the way for an FTA to be agreed by a qualified majority vote of EU
member states.
“The
Court of justice says all services - even transport - can be ratified by a
qualified majority vote, which is potentially quite a big opening for the UK,”
said Steve Peers, professor of EU law at Essex University. “It could certainly
make things easier.”
In the ruling, the
ECJ was asked to decide whether the new-generation bilateral EU-Singapore trade
deal should be treated as a so-called ‘mixed’ agreement - that requires
ratification by national parliaments - or could be agreed by a qualified
majority vote of member states.
The
court ruled that the EU did not have exclusive competence to conclude the
Singapore deal, but said that only in two narrow areas - namely non-direct
foreign investment and the investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms - did it
need to seek ratification by national parliaments.
By contrast, the court said the EU did
have competence to conclude agreements without ratification across the great
majority of the Singapore agreement - contradicting parts of a previous opinion
by the court’s
advocate-general. Telegraph.
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