(24 December 2020) – After intensive negotiations, the European Commission has reached today an agreement with the United Kingdom on the terms of its future cooperation with the European Union.
The draft Trade and Cooperation Agreement consists of three main pillars: a Free Trade Agreement; a new partnership for citizens’ security; a horizontal agreement on Governance.
Even with the new EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement in place, there will be big changes on 1 January 2021. On that date, the UK will leave the EU Single Market and Customs Union, as well as all EU policies and international agreements. The free movement of persons, goods, services and capital between the UK and the EU will end.
The EU and the UK will form two separate markets; two distinct regulatory and legal spaces. This will create barriers to trade in goods and services and to cross-border mobility and exchanges that do not exist today – in both directions.