Britain and the European Union have finished a deal to strip away post-Brexit checks on food and animal products, the biggest piece so far of the reset between London and Brussels.
The 200-page sanitary and phytosanitary agreement goes to EU ambassadors on Wednesday. It is expected to be signed off around a UK-EU summit on Nov. 20, where Prime Minister Andy Burnham and EU leaders are due to issue a joint statement.
British exporters will have to wait. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has told industry leaders the deal may not take effect until 2028, well behind its earlier target of May next year, with an extra six-month transition for a few products such as grains treated with fungicides the EU has not approved.
What exporters gain
The holdup stems from Britain's need to dynamically align its food standards law with EU rules. A change of prime minister also pushed the summit back six months after Labour replaced Keir Starmer as leader in July.
Once in force, the deal should end the need for Export Health Certificates costing about 200 pounds each and phytosanitary certificates costing about 25 pounds. Exports of fresh sausages, burgers, domestic shellfish and seed potatoes to the EU could resume, and pet passports for British animals traveling to the bloc would return.
The government says the agreement will eventually deliver 5.1 billion pounds in annual economic benefits. The National Farmers' Union said last month that British food exports to the EU had fallen by a third since Brexit, with eggs, chicken and potato products hit hardest.
Northern Ireland and the summit
William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chamber of Commerce, said businesses broadly see following common rules as a price worth paying, arguing that certificate requirements can add thousands of pounds to each truckload.
The deal carries particular weight in Northern Ireland, which stayed inside the EU single market for goods. It would ultimately end the paperwork and physical checks on food arriving from elsewhere in the UK, and retailers there would no longer have to label products as not for the EU.
Other parts of the summit package are still in play. Ambassadors will review drafts on emissions trading and a youth experience scheme, which is still being negotiated, along with a late UK proposal on tuition fees for young Europeans.
Political fault lines
Linking emissions trading systems would also spare UK exporters the EU's new carbon border tax.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said dynamic alignment with the EU was a red line that would take Britain backwards. Liberal Democrat Europe spokesperson Al Pinkerton called the deal a step in the right direction but a patch, not a fix.
The real solution is to rejoin the single market and to establish a customs union with the EU,
Al Pinkerton, Liberal Democrat Europe spokesperson
Burnham has said he would like to see Britain rejoin the EU in his lifetime, a break from Starmer's position. He added that he would not run ahead of public opinion and said he had not proposed restoring freedom of movement.
