Exiting the EU Committee Select Committees

Order, order. Good morning. You are

most welcome. Thank you for giving

up your time to give evidence to us

as a select committee today, drawing

on a wide range of past experience

and expertise. You were a trade

commissioner and former director of

the World Trade Organisation. You

said at an Institute for Government

seminar that you thought that

negotiating a new trade and economic

relationship between the United

Kingdom and the European Union would

take, I think I am right in saying,

between five and six years. Could

you set out for us why you think it

would take that long and has

anything happened since you said

that that has led you to revise that

timetable?

Thanks for having the

honour for witnessing this

committee. From the very beginning

just after the vote in 2016, I have

been thinking and saying I am now

free enough to be saying what I

think. It is a great relief. After

many years of restraints.

Part of the omelette that was

created for many years, moving back

from that these, inevitably in my

view, very complex issues. Leaving

aside the politics of that and

getting this done is as difficult as

getting out of an omelette. Just

after Brexit.

I will need some time for

preparation. To answer your

question, Mr Chairman, it will take

a long time because it is complex.

It took many years for the European

Union to move from a comment market

to the single market. When removed

from the comment market, and there

is a difference between the markets,

I was chief of staff when he took

this initiative in 1985. This

process of integration, mostly

through regulatory work has been

going on for many years. Moving back

from that will be complex and in my

view, for what it is worth, if there

were many benefits in moving to

comment market and the single

market...

OK, in the light of what

you have just said, at the moment

the two parties are talking about a

transitional period, which, from my

perspective will be a period where

negotiations have to take place

because they will not be concluded

by October, ending in December 2020,

presumably, in the light of what you

have just told us, you do not think

it will be possible to do that by

December 2020?

That is what is on

the table so far.

OK.

This is what I

understand people in Brussels and

the UK Government agreed to so far.

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