One of the central pillars of the government's strategy for our deep and special partnership with the EU post Brexit is this idea of mutual recognition agreements (MRA). Richard North helpfully put a link on his blog to this note issued by the Business Department in 2012 which describes how MRAs work. The note is HERE. The first thing to understand is that the EU is a common regulatory area where for many goods there are harmonised standards that apply across the market.
These harmonised standards have been developed after consultation with companies throughout Europe and agreed at both EU and national level. These standards are backed up by law, surveillance and enforcement mechanisms with the ECJ as the judicial body to ensure the rules and standards are applied fairly and any interpretation is clarified legally.
However, for many goods there are no harmonised standards. This is because there may be no appetite among manufacturers, or legislators or the goods are made in small quantities and used mainly in one member state. So, to avoid any issues about the circulation of these goods inside the EU there is mutual recognition. Each member state agrees to accept these goods on the basis that if they are deemed safe for the consumer or the environment in one state they are thus fit in all states.
But member states have to make these national standards freely available so the UK government note says:
The Mutual Recognition Regulation (EC 764/2008), in force since May 2009, strengthens the operation of free trade in goods in the EU. (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, which are members of the European Economic Area (EEA) but not of the EU itself, also agreed to this regulation.) It requires that all member states provide free information on their national technical rules and sets out a standard procedure for enforcing those rules.
The key point though and one that our government ignores is that it applies to member states only plus the EEA. It does not and cannot apply to third countries. It is a concession to member states, not other nations who have rejected the whole idea of the single market. David Davis thinks this applies to harmonised standards but it doesn't. If he proposes that the EU extend the whole idea of MRAs to cover third countries as well as harmonised EU standards, he may be badly mistaken.
What this means is that goods will still have to comply fully with EU harmonised standards if they are exported to the EU. There might be an agreement that a UK body will be authorised to confirm compliance but it does not mean the EU will accept the third country standards. And I assume this puts at risk goods made in the UK that are not covered by harmonised standards since there will not be an extension of mutual recognition for non harmonised goods. A full list is available at the link above but it includes all kinds of things such as bikes, measuring equipment, heaters, bunk beds, pencils, etc, etc, etc.
This morning the EU's main trade adviser to Michel Barnier is reported in The Guardian (HERE) as saying two important things on this topic at an LSE conference yesterday. Firstly, that the EU is moving away from mutual recognition anyway in favour of a more centralised approach and secondly, and perhaps more importantly there was no precedent for allowing third countries to participate in key EU agencies like the EMA (European Medicines Agency). If he also means the Aviation Safety Agency this would be disastrous for UK airlines and aerospace industry.
