On Thursday 29 March, one year to the day from Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May gave assurances that the UK's departure from the EU would enable more powers to be given to regional and local levels (see EUROPE 11991).
"We're clear that when powers come back to the United Kingdom, when we leave the European Union more powers will be devolved to the Scottish Government", she said in Ayrshire, Scotland, from where she began her 24-hour tour of all the nations of the UK to better gauge the sentiments of the population.
The British government wants to ensure that in the intervening period of the negotiations with the EU, especially on the Irish question, the UK's internal market is not compromised. It refuses to allow a border in the Irish Sea to be erected between Great Britain and the island of Ireland should there be regulatory alignment of Northern Ireland with Ireland.
But Scotland and Wales fear the Brexit process may result in a new centralisation of competences towards London.
"We want to ensure that in simple things like selling food across the whole of the United Kingdom, there aren't any barriers put up to doing that as freely it can happen today", May said, as quoted by British press, thus justifying the government's desire to freeze certain regional competences temporarily. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)