The British public have spoken in a referendum, and decided, by a small majority, that they wish to leave the EU.
We do not know if this will make much difference to our everyday lives. There is a lot of negotiating to be done, with at least two years, and probably more, before the terms of the exit are agreed and implemented.
The outcome of these discussions will affect every country in Europe. In the same way that Britain would be affected by restrictions on its access to EU markets, the EU countries would suffer if access to the British ones was restricted in some way.
So, once the political noises have died down, the civil servants from all sides will start talking. Whilst there have been suggestions by EU officials that Britain “must suffer” for the decision to leave in order to discourage more countries form taking the same path, that is a very negative view of the EU and its people, and it will not prevail. Businesses on both sides of the divide will still want to trade with each other freely. The big question is how this can be achieved.
Many claim that Britain is a “special case”, and perhaps there is some truth in that. But first I think it would help to take a few steps back and consider why the EU came into existence, and why Britain eventually joined it, and then decided to leave it.
In the aftermath of the Second World War there was considerable and understandable pressure to find a way to stop the countries of Europe going to war again. In 1957, the Western countries affected by World War 2, Belgium, France, (West) Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, signed a treaty in Rome to form the European Economic Community, with the purpose of binding these countries together economically, so that they did not fight physically.
In 1975, Britain joins the EU. What it wanted was access to the economic community, Free Trade in other words. Britain has always been a trading nation. It did not join a political union, or did not think it had. It saw the route to economic success, a shared European success, through the abolition of trade barriers and the creation of wealth, shared amongst the participating nations. It has never supported the creation of a European Super State, what is sometimes called “Ever Closer Union” .
The UK has the lowest percentage of its exports going to the EU of any European country and it is not dependent on exports to Europe in the same way that other countries are. Britain is the 5th largest economy in the world and the 2nd largest in Europe.
Of course, at this point we do not know how it will all work out, but life will go on much as before. In the meantime, both France and Germany have elections next year, and their positions on this subject will evolve over time, to a point where we will all end up reasonably content.
Whilst all this is going on, Britain remains a large and attractive market, and EBS is here to help companies set up and sell in the UK in a cost effective and low risk way.