reimburse Northern Irish businesses if they are hit by tariffs due to a collapse in Brexit talks, Michael Gove has said...If there is no deal a unique arrangement for Northern Ireland kicks in, with EU tariffs payable on goods circulating within the region but rebates on all goods that do not cross into the Republic of Ireland....Business leaders described the move as “significant” but expressed concern about the lack of detail.There might be problems though:
the EU state-aid rules would make the scheme problematic for big companies...Importers of cars, for example, would face a 10% additional levy on purchases from Nissan in Great Britain without any knowledge of when they could get a rebate.Existing rules [NB] in the European State Fund would limit reimbursement to 200k euros over three years. Thank God we are leaving then?
There are sceptics, of course:
Victor Chestnutt, [crazy name. crazy guy] the deputy president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, said planning for January was “like walking out into the mist, into the fog”....The committee chairman, [NI Affairs] Simon Hoare, said the apparent “open skies” thinking was risky. “Six months out, [it] seems to be playing with fire,” said the Conservative MP for North Dorset....He added that trying to get firm information out of Gove and the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, made him feel like “Alice through the looking glass [trying to divine] what words mean”.
Politicians aren't used to that, of course. As usual, everything has to be cut, dried and in unambiguous legislation [some chance] before it will satisfy doubters.
Meanwhile, floods of cheap money and massive borrowing after covid really do seem to have changed the whole economic position -- and made a no deal cliff edge/dark pit/car crash less catastrophic?
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