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EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

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Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#181

Post by reubeniv »

isostatic wrote: post #156
reubeniv wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not strictly true, I know a few countries have agreed to roll over the deals the have with the EU over to the UK, not all have been signed and (not a great comfort) the only ones I know of that have (so far) are Isreal and (I think?) Australia

Australia doesn't have a trade deal with the EU, they've said that the UK leaving will not change their desire for one Israel you're right -- they agreed it last week.

Not strictly true again, it's not a FTA but there exists a trade deal in some form and the UK just signed with Australia - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-co...

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#182

Post by siruncledrew »

hkmurakami wrote: post #143
TorKlingberg wrote: post #22

Japan has avoided the madness of tariffs and trade wars that has affected the west recently. Instead they have been quietly negotiating trade deals with everyone and generally getting along. Good on them! Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy.

I still remember how horridly expensive cheese was in Japan. This is excellent news.

That's pretty interesting, is it expensive for all types of cheese from like kraft singles to french brie?

Do you have any other stories of common EU/US items that are rare in Japan?

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#183

Post by Reason077 »

theoh wrote: post #148
Reason077 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sweden and Norway are both Schengen members, so they have explicitly agreed on freedom of movement for people. That does not say anything about goods." Exactly. And this is the same situation for Ireland & Northern Ireland, post-Brexit. The UK and Ireland have a Common Travel Area which guarantees the free movement of people, just like the Schengen agreement. "they want to go it alone and not align their trade polic…

Compare Switzerland: while it's not in the EEA, there are extensive agreements between Switzerland and the EU which ensure regulatory alignment on the issues that matter. There's no way to have Schengen-like free movement without either EEA membership or the Swiss "EEA lite" arrangement. You can't have customs checks at the border (avoiding customs union with EU) and simultaneously maintain the CTA regime. Edit: deta…

Norway and Sweden have “customs checks at the border” while both being part of the Schengen Agreement.

I’m not suggesting this is a desirable or unproblematic solution for Northern Ireland, but to claim that it is “not possible” is false.

Any free trade agreement between the UK and EU would of course have “EEA-like” clauses to ensure regulatory alignment.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#184

Post by geoka9 »

dmix wrote: post #98
matt4077 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt there are many countries with more than two or three competing networks. There may be a few more resellers, or even several dozens. But it’s just uneconomical to build the hardware five times over. In any case, a FTA is not going to change it.

So how does that explain the high cost of our networks vs other countries? I'm not convinced a regulated oligopoly is the only positive option. If anything it's only positive for: a) the private friends of government who profited when the business was kept 100% Canadian b) the intelligence agencies who were given plenty of access. Most of the ownership capital went to a small group of millionaires and billionaires. M…

Freedom Mobile is owned by Shaw nowadays. There is also Public Mobile (which started as an independent provider but is now owned by Telus).

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#185

Post by babuskov »

hippich wrote: post #43

While lack of tariffs is nice, as a small-time seller, complying with all these VAT, taxing rules (Germany added new requirement in 2019 to obtain some kind of new tax certificate which is not related to VAT certificate) makes it quite complicated from compliance point alone. But I guess it represents general attitude towards business in europe. Not sure how it is like in Japan. [edit] What I mean is that it is all f…

> Germany added new requirement in 2019 to obtain some kind of new tax certificate

Is it the tax residence one? We have had it in my country since 2017 and it has been a major PITA when working with smaller partners from US/Canada.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#186

Post by cyphar »

roywiggins wrote: post #145
max76 wrote: post #136

"For the first time, the trade agreement includes countries' Paris climate deal commitments." This is a brilliant answer to the tragedy of the commons. Often times people ask why they should make great efforts to be more environmentally friendly when other groups are not. This creates multiparty incentives attached to real economic benefits to keep their word on climate change. I hope The US, China, and Russia all en…

The TPP would have folded in a bunch of environmental protection rules, but the US blew it up. It's debatable how good these protections would have been, but they were not nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Envi...

The TPP had many other issues though.

Examples include criminal penalties for breaking DRM or disclosing trade secrets, and establishing an international tribunal that allows corporations to sue for monetary damages from a government that passes a law which they feel is discriminatory. (I know the US has trade agreements like this already, but it's a new thing for Australia -- and unfortunately we are now part of the new US-exempt TPP.)

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#187

Post by benj111 »

Silhouette wrote: post #167
benj111 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer, so not 100% but Article 1 part iii: "and that it would be wrong to make any change in the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent of a majority of its people;" A majority of NI didn't vote for Brexit, and a hard border would change the status of NI?

This is a selective quote and commonly misunderstood. Taken in context, the status in question is whether NI remains a part of the UK or becomes a part of a united Ireland. The point of that provision was that across the entire island of Ireland there was a majority for a reunited Ireland, but within NI specifically there was not, so this was an explicit agreement that reuniting North and South would not happen witho…

You asked for a part of the agreement. I ventured a somewhat uninformed opinion. If you know more than me, then isn't it incumbent on you to venture an opinion on why we're in the situation of trying to avoid a hard border?

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#188

Post by vinay427 »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #169

Is this meaningful for the average customer? I'd like to import two Switch games to the EU from Japan soon (eBay or PlayAsia). Will the agreement mean that there are no potential customs for me anymore?

I believe they have to be made in Japan, unless this is an actual customs union which is unlikely. Essentially, if a product is imported from a country A into country B, which has an FTA with country C, it cannot be imported (under the agreement) into country C unless country C has an FTA with country A or countries B and C have some sort of customs union.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36083664

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#189

Post by isostatic »

reubeniv wrote: post #181
isostatic wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia doesn't have a trade deal with the EU, they've said that the UK leaving will not change their desire for one Israel you're right -- they agreed it last week.

Not strictly true again, it's not a FTA but there exists a trade deal in some form and the UK just signed with Australia - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-agree-co...

That's not really a trade deal (well it's not listed on the page with the free trade agreements the UK has [0], nor on the list of preferential trade deals the UK has [1])

While the spin is "we're doing business", all this does is

"continue to benefit from existing arrangements for mutual recognition"

Given that those benefits are so insignificant they don't appear as free trade agreements says it all really. It's to do with certification (not tarrifs) in a few areas (Automotive Products, Pressure Equipment, Medical Devices etc)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agre...

[1] https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-free-trade-deals-has-eu...

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#190

Post by Xixi »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #39
pastor_elm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Benefits of free-trade? You mean like a devastated blue collar class? Keep British products manufactured in Britain.

Manufacturing has mostly moved to China, not the EU.

A lot of manufacturing has moved to Eastern Europe, especially car manufacturing. Ironically, UK was a strong advocate of the EU enlargement...
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