The political declaration on future relations between the EU and the United Kingdom will be of great importance for environment, health, consumer protection and many other areas important to citizens. However, such aspects have not been much discussed since a draft text was published last weekend.
It now seems no new version will be published until the European Council on Sunday, when the declaration is supposed to be adopted. This is problematic both from a democratic viewpoint and when it comes to the quality of the agreement. Without public scrutiny, important aspects might be forgotten.
Take environment. It is difficult to understand why “environment” or “sustainable development” is not mentioned in the initial principles, since such wording is included among the general principles of the EU Treaties and should not be controversial.
Even more concerning is the commitment to future “deep regulatory cooperation” without mentioning high environmental ambitions. This implies a clear risk for slowing down decision-making on future EU environmental policy. Not because the UK will have formal influence on decision-making, but because regulatory cooperation as it is now being implemented in other trade agreements includes biased impact assessment processes and a shift of power from environmental ministries to trade and competition experts. The situation is similar when it comes to consumer protection, health and safety at work, and so on. Warnings from for example Umweltsbundesamt in Germany about regulatory cooperation in mega-regional trade agreements are valid also for EU-UK relations after Brexit.
There is still time to make changes to the political declaration. In addition to demands from some EU member states for UK commitments to future higher environmental ambitions, the Initial principles should include a high level of environmental protection, and regulatory cooperation should be linked to progressive higher ambitions in order to reach sustainable development.
Mats Engström 