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That would seriously undermine the existence of the EU as a whole. Bear in mind, it justifies the very steep membership fees (for the countries that have high e

That would seriously undermine the existence of the EU as a whole. Bear in mind, it justifies the very steep membership fees (for the countries that have high enough GDP to pay) by tying membership to free trade. The EU keeps quite high external tariffs on a lot of things, especially in order to protect French agriculture. Thus the primary argument Remainers presented for staying in the EU was that if Britain left the EU would levy new trade barriers and tariffs on its exports. The EU has many members who are in it primarily for the transactional benefits. If the EU eliminated external tariffs not only would the French be out on the streets again immediately, but one of the primary motivations for membership would evaporate and the EU would lose a lot of leverage over member states.

ben_w 2y ago
The EU is a lot broader than just a tariff agreement; even just the "four freedoms" of the EU are goods, capital, labour, and services, and keeping with the Brexit theme, the trade barriers that Remain was talking about also included "no you can't just do your trade across the border now, we no longer recognise your qualifications" and "we need to inspect the goods crossing this border to make sure they're complying with our legal requirements; yes, we know you didn't change your own, but now there's nothing stopping you from having imported something from somewhere else that didn't follow our rules, and we need to check". (Also, I said "lower" not "eliminate"; I was thinking more of Chinese PV, and perhaps cars, though cars would have a different group protesting).
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Yes, there are lots of trade barriers beyond tariffs, nonetheless the EU does impose plenty of them. See my other reply. And if your goal is to simply have closer trading relations then tariffs vs other kinds of regulatory barriers isn't an important difference. This is why Trump talks about things like VAT, and others in his camp talk about the fines levied on tech companies. From their perspective it's all financially equivalent to tariffs.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > tariffs vs other kinds of regulatory barriers isn't an important difference It's a huge difference! It's why the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect exists at all. Regulatory barriers are the foundational reason the EU parliament exists — to remove those barriers between member states and make sure all member states are on the same page when change needs to happen. One of the big talking points from the Leave campaign was about sovereignty: that's the ability to make the rules in your own jurisdiction. I never bought those arguments in part because the UK got basically everything it asked for, but also because Brexit combined (1) losing the power to influence those rules going forward, (2) still being de-facto subject them thanks to the Brussels effect, and (3) having a trade barrier with the EU despite #2, because the EU couldn't afford to just trust the UK on the matter. Every small business that stopped trading with the EU post-Brexit due to customs forms being too complex even when they and their customers would have been fine with the actual cost of the tariffs themselves, is a non-financial barrier. > This is why Trump talks about things like VAT, and others in his camp talk about the fines levied on tech companies. From their perspective it's all financially equivalent to tariffs. Does any inter-state trade within the US have tariffs due to different states having their own sales-tax rates? Because to me, the US talk about VAT is that kind of foolishness. Similar for fines for non-compliance with laws — what's the difference between two US states having different laws and one state suing a business for non-compliance, vs. the EU and US having different laws and an EU member state suing a business for non-compliance? In fact, if the regulatory barriers between the EU and US were levelled out, then the result would be somewhere on a line between "every Big Tech firm could be sued in a US court for GDPR violations" or "GDPR doesn't exist any more". I'm sure there's plenty of people in the US who would love to delete all the cookie popups and are eager to spy on everyone, but it really isn't just about pure monetary cost. Actually, now I think about it, cars and eggs: for cars, UK (and IIRC EU) law doesn't permit Cybertruck on the roads — if you tried to model that as a tariff, it would be ∞; likewise for eggs, US controls the salmonella risk of eggs by requiring cleaning which in turn damages the shells meaning they must be refrigerated in the supermarkets, while EU eggs handle it with vaccination of the hens and regard refrigeration before sale as a potential risk factor due to causing damage to the shells.
sofixa 2y ago
> Bear in mind, it justifies the very steep membership fees (for the countries that have high enough GDP to pay) by tying membership to free trade. The EU keeps quite high external tariffs on a lot of things, especially in order to protect French agriculture You're wrong: https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/mercosur/eu-mercosur-agreement_en https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou... The EU justifies the high membership fees for the rich members by the benefits those rich members get - the poorer EU countries get invested in, get developed, some of their people go live in the richer countries and contribute there, but in the end, the country evolves a lot and becomes a significant market for EU goods and contributor. Point in case, Poland, the Baltics, Spain, Romania. France has benefited from Romanian development a lot, and from Romanians when Romania was less developed. It's literally a win win win win.
- aredox 2y ago
  Even the "bad countries" like Greece have bought a lot of German stuff: cars, weapons... https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/athen/20974.pdf https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/athen/20974.pdf
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  I don't think you can say the benefits the rich members get are their fees being sent to poor members. That's not a benefit to the people who live in the rich countries, that's a price levied on membership. Which is why the last time the EU was seriously debated at a national level (Brexit) nobody attempted to defend the membership fees as anything other than a purely transactional arrangement. You certainly can't claim that immigration is a membership benefit because a country can set its visa policy to attract however many migrants it wants if it's outside the EU, but not if it's inside. I'm not sure what relevance your link has to what I said, by the way. The Mercosur agreement only happened because the EU was able to keep agricultural tariffs in place: https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/mercosur/eu-mercosur-agreement/factsheet-eu-mercosur-partnership-agreement-opening-opportunities-european-farmers_en https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou... > For sensitive products like beef, poultry or sugar, in particular, access to the EU market will be permanently limited through gradually implemented quotas. The EU will grant very limited access to its market to imports of agri-food products. Moreover, a bilateral safeguard clause can be applied in case increased imports from Mercosur cause - or even only threaten to cause - serious injury to the relevant EU sectors. For the first time, this safeguard clause also covers imports under tariff rate quotas. The agreement does not give duty-free access to Mercosur beef. It will allow 99,000 tonnes of Mercosur beef to enter the EU market with a 7.5% duty. 55% of the quota will consist of fresh or chilled meat and 45% of lower-value frozen meat.

ben_w 2y ago

The EU is a lot broader than just a tariff agreement; even just the "four freedoms" of the EU are goods, capital, labour, and services, and keeping with the Brexit theme, the trade barriers that Remain was talking about also included "no you can't just do your trade across the border now, we no longer recognise your qualifications" and "we need to inspect the goods crossing this border to make sure they're complying with our legal requirements; yes, we know you didn't change your own, but now there's nothing stopping you from having imported something from somewhere else that didn't follow our rules, and we need to check". (Also, I said "lower" not "eliminate"; I was thinking more of Chinese PV, and perhaps cars, though cars would have a different group protesting).

mike_hearn 2y ago
Yes, there are lots of trade barriers beyond tariffs, nonetheless the EU does impose plenty of them. See my other reply. And if your goal is to simply have closer trading relations then tariffs vs other kinds of regulatory barriers isn't an important difference. This is why Trump talks about things like VAT, and others in his camp talk about the fines levied on tech companies. From their perspective it's all financially equivalent to tariffs.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > tariffs vs other kinds of regulatory barriers isn't an important difference It's a huge difference! It's why the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect exists at all. Regulatory barriers are the foundational reason the EU parliament exists — to remove those barriers between member states and make sure all member states are on the same page when change needs to happen. One of the big talking points from the Leave campaign was about sovereignty: that's the ability to make the rules in your own jurisdiction. I never bought those arguments in part because the UK got basically everything it asked for, but also because Brexit combined (1) losing the power to influence those rules going forward, (2) still being de-facto subject them thanks to the Brussels effect, and (3) having a trade barrier with the EU despite #2, because the EU couldn't afford to just trust the UK on the matter. Every small business that stopped trading with the EU post-Brexit due to customs forms being too complex even when they and their customers would have been fine with the actual cost of the tariffs themselves, is a non-financial barrier. > This is why Trump talks about things like VAT, and others in his camp talk about the fines levied on tech companies. From their perspective it's all financially equivalent to tariffs. Does any inter-state trade within the US have tariffs due to different states having their own sales-tax rates? Because to me, the US talk about VAT is that kind of foolishness. Similar for fines for non-compliance with laws — what's the difference between two US states having different laws and one state suing a business for non-compliance, vs. the EU and US having different laws and an EU member state suing a business for non-compliance? In fact, if the regulatory barriers between the EU and US were levelled out, then the result would be somewhere on a line between "every Big Tech firm could be sued in a US court for GDPR violations" or "GDPR doesn't exist any more". I'm sure there's plenty of people in the US who would love to delete all the cookie popups and are eager to spy on everyone, but it really isn't just about pure monetary cost. Actually, now I think about it, cars and eggs: for cars, UK (and IIRC EU) law doesn't permit Cybertruck on the roads — if you tried to model that as a tariff, it would be ∞; likewise for eggs, US controls the salmonella risk of eggs by requiring cleaning which in turn damages the shells meaning they must be refrigerated in the supermarkets, while EU eggs handle it with vaccination of the hens and regard refrigeration before sale as a potential risk factor due to causing damage to the shells.

sofixa 2y ago

> Bear in mind, it justifies the very steep membership fees (for the countries that have high enough GDP to pay) by tying membership to free trade. The EU keeps quite high external tariffs on a lot of things, especially in order to protect French agriculture You're wrong: https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/mercosur/eu-mercosur-agreement_en https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou... The EU justifies the high membership fees for the rich members by the benefits those rich members get - the poorer EU countries get invested in, get developed, some of their people go live in the richer countries and contribute there, but in the end, the country evolves a lot and becomes a significant market for EU goods and contributor. Point in case, Poland, the Baltics, Spain, Romania. France has benefited from Romanian development a lot, and from Romanians when Romania was less developed. It's literally a win win win win.

aredox 2y ago
Even the "bad countries" like Greece have bought a lot of German stuff: cars, weapons... https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/athen/20974.pdf https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/athen/20974.pdf
mike_hearn 2y ago
I don't think you can say the benefits the rich members get are their fees being sent to poor members. That's not a benefit to the people who live in the rich countries, that's a price levied on membership. Which is why the last time the EU was seriously debated at a national level (Brexit) nobody attempted to defend the membership fees as anything other than a purely transactional arrangement. You certainly can't claim that immigration is a membership benefit because a country can set its visa policy to attract however many migrants it wants if it's outside the EU, but not if it's inside. I'm not sure what relevance your link has to what I said, by the way. The Mercosur agreement only happened because the EU was able to keep agricultural tariffs in place: https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/mercosur/eu-mercosur-agreement/factsheet-eu-mercosur-partnership-agreement-opening-opportunities-european-farmers_en https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou... > For sensitive products like beef, poultry or sugar, in particular, access to the EU market will be permanently limited through gradually implemented quotas. The EU will grant very limited access to its market to imports of agri-food products. Moreover, a bilateral safeguard clause can be applied in case increased imports from Mercosur cause - or even only threaten to cause - serious injury to the relevant EU sectors. For the first time, this safeguard clause also covers imports under tariff rate quotas. The agreement does not give duty-free access to Mercosur beef. It will allow 99,000 tonnes of Mercosur beef to enter the EU market with a 7.5% duty. 55% of the quota will consist of fresh or chilled meat and 45% of lower-value frozen meat.