On Wednesday 11 October, the EU and UK sent all the WTO member countries a joint letter setting out the approach that the EU and UK intend to adopt on the implications of Brexit (planned for the end of March 2019) for their WTO commitments and concessions on trade in goods, services and public procurement.
The schedules of the EU's concessions and commitments annexed to the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) were "simultaneously annexed" for the UK when the EU accepted the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the WTO in 1995 and "(the schedules of the EU's concessions and commitments) therefore contain commitments applicable also to the UK in its capacity as a WTO member", the EU and UK ambassadors to the WTO, Marc Vanheukelen and Julian Braithwaite respectively, state in their letter.
"As far as the EU is concerned, its scheduled commitments for goods, services and public procurement will remain applicable to its territory, but the EU's existing quantitative commitments in the area of goods will require certain adjustments to reflect the UK's withdrawal from the EU", the two ambassadors state.
After Brexit, "the UK will remain a member of the WTO, subject to all the rights and obligations that this entails. It will have its own separate schedules of commitments for goods and services, to take effect immediately upon leaving the EU", the two ambassadors add, giving assurances that the UK will communicate its own separate schedules before it leaves the EU in March 2019, and that the UK intends "to replicate as far as possible" its obligations under the current commitments of the EU.
The EU and the UK will follow a "cooperative and transparent approach regarding any necessary adjustment in the WTO arising from the UK withdrawal from the EU", and "will strive to minimise disruption to trade as the UK leaves the EU". The EU and UK furthermore "intend to maintain the existing levels of market access available to other WTO members".
To this end, the EU and UK want the future EU's (excluding the UK) and UK's (outside the EU) quantitative commitments in the form of tariff-rate quotas to "be obtained through an apportionment of the EU’s existing commitments, based on trade flows under each tariff-rate quota", Vanheukelen and Braithwaite state, proposing to follow a common approach to data and methodology, and to engage actively with WTO members on these.
Similarly, the EU and UK want the EU's current annual and final bound commitment level specified for domestic agricultural support to "be apportioned between the future EU and the UK on the basis of an objective methodology".
The EU moreover gives assurances that as an EU of 27 member states it will remain party to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, and that it will work with the UK to attain the their objective of remaining, upon leaving the EU, subject to the rights and obligations it currently has under the Government Procurement Agreement as an EU member state on the basis of the commitments currently contained in the EU schedule of commitments.
In addition, the EU and the UK remain fully committed to the trade and development agenda, and the UK confirms its intentions on the continuation of preferential arrangements for developing and least-developed countries after Brexit. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)