And if you can actually think one step further you may actually ask yourself "hm if we don't agree to EU regulations what will the other side think and possibly not do".
It doesn't matter what the other side thinks, as long as the EEA member state acts in accordance to the provisions set out in the EEA Agreement. Norway, for example, always contests EU law and have not encountered any major repercussions.
As an example,an EU directive on postal services in 2011 was outright rejected by Norway--and they went afraid to tell the EU that. Another example could be the oil and gas regulations covering offshore drilling--also rejected.
Sure, it may have prompted some concern and angry finger-wagging from Brussels, but Norway acted in accordance with the Agreement.
But then again some people are Kippers and believe that trading with the UK is the greatest blessing anyone has ever been granted.
Just for the record, I am no longer affiliated with any political party.
As far as I can discover no one is offering the UK membership of an EEA/EFTA arrangement.
No and I would also strongly fight any campaign to place us in the Norway Option long-term: to do so would be limiting what we could really accomplish.
nor is the EU proposing to extend such an existing arrangement to us.
What are you talking about? You do realise that we are already part of the EEA? And that joining EFTA has nothing to do with the EU?
Yes.....?
, like for Switzerland, we would need to comply will all EU financial and trade agreements and laws, but have no part in establishing them.
Who the hell is advocating taking up the Swiss Option? No comparison should ever be made here as the EU-Swiss trading agreements took 16 years of blood, sweat, and tears to conclude--and the end result isn't even all that great.
Like Every country we would have to comply with EU law when dealing with them, Just as they have to comply with other's laws.
If you're talking about us having to meet all the applicable requirements if we still want to continue exporting goods to the EU then, yes, we would have to continue to follow these. But that's fine--it's not too much of a big deal: after all, it's what we do now, anyways.
The only thing we would have to do is build in an MRA into the free trade agreements--something I
think we already have complied to as EEA participants...
The Advantaged of being inside the EU is overwhelming both in finance and trade.
Trade =/= EU
Trade = EEA/FTA/EFTA
And finance has nothing to do with the EU--anyone claiming otherwise is inherently ignorant. For example, all EU law relating to banking capital is sourced from the BCBS. Same goes for capital requirements and the like. But in a nutshell:
Financial Stability Board -----(national organisations: IMF, G20, central banks,)--------> European Union.
The links and agreements we have established between the EU and the rest of the world have taken many years to establish and mature.
They are not transferable, we would have to recreate such agreements again, and probably not on such favourable terms.
You are absolutely right--we could not possibly unravel 40 years of politico-economic integration at the snap of the finger, as Flexcit asserts: something that Ukip are quite so keen to do.
A post-Brexit Britain would require many laborious intermittent stages before, once again, becoming a fully sovereign nation independent from the project of "ever closer union".[/QUOTE][/QUOTE][/QUOTE][/QUOTE]