Three days with postgraduate students and others in Copenhagen was interesting last week.
The underlying assumption of the EU Horizon 2020 Coffers project which provides most of my employment at present is that since the 1990s there has been a gradual increase in the intensity of change on tax and that the pace of that change has moved from very cool, slow and and almost imperceptible, to a hot, rapid and even turbulent process of transformation at present. Coffers strands for Combating Financial Fraud and Empowering Regulators and our aim is both to trace and track that process of change, but to also have traction by suggesting the creation of new tools for increasing tax authority effectiveness. This course gave me the first chance to discuss an idea I have been working on to an audience. It will appear here in due course.
Right now what I want to mention was how little Brexit was mentioned. UK politics might be obsessed with this issue, and rightly so. From our national perspective the change makes Suez look like a modest incident, so massive will be the consequence over time for our national self-identity, let alone our economic prospects. But Europeans have other things to think about. Twenty-seven states will continue without us. And they are at best curious about the terms on which we will leave.
When I suggested that Brexit could be a trigger point for further tax change the idea was, I think, considered faintly ridiculous. The view seemed to be that we in the UK might be heading into insignificance, but that is a sideshow for them. And if the UK breaks up (the consensus on a united Ireland was high), 'so what?' was the reaction. There was little interest in whether Scotland left the UK: that was a domestic matter for us to deal with now.
Everything is a matter of perspective. The European perspective on Brexit would appear to be that it's yesterday's news.
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IT is so an disappointment to see that the EUpaper from two years ago, where the EU outlined the basic rules for an acceptable brexit deal, is complete ignored by all your solutions about Brexit. The result is that as an European I do not think that an there will be ever an for the EU acceptable outcome.
So, why to spend time about Brexit?
Interesting.
Whilst in Berlin, the common refrain from ordinary Germans we met when BREXIT was mentioned was about issues over the cost of living. ‘How will you be able to afford this and that?’.
It is as though they understood the benefits of the trade deal and how being part of something bigger was really useful for day to day survival.
For example I found a fantastic analogue film shop on Garten Strasse (35mm photography is one of my passions I’m afraid and I am finding it increasingly difficult to keep doing it because it is getting really expensive as my income continues to drop). I was talking to the shop owner in English and he said that slide film in Germany was still cheap to process (3 Euros) at their equivalent of Boots (called ‘DM’) because the market in Germany was so huge (it is a big country).
Development costs for E6 (slide) in the UK are upwards now of £12 per film plus the £3.50 carriage that the greedy north American CEO of the newly privatised Royal Mail slapped on when she took charge. I have had to stop using it and keep myself now to rolls of 24 exposure B&W print film to keep the cost down. But that too is creeping up.
What I sense from your report is not that the EU don’t give a damn about BREXIT. Rather they are basically saying that the UK made a grown up decision so now you just need to get on with it or change your mind. It’s up to you. Sort it out and keep us up to date and if you need our help give us a call. It’s how you would try to parent an older teenager on their life style choices.
The thing is – and considering Jolyon’s recent report on the High Court verdict on the Electoral Commission’s flawed interpretation of the definition of campaign expenses which has not been as widely reported as it should have been – we know that there is very little that is grown up about the LEAVE brigade and nothing of any merit as far as I am concerned about the reasons given for many people to base their LEAVE vote.
This small island of ours is about to get smaller and more expensive. Like any other off shore tax haven for that matter.
A friend who recently returned from a family wedding in northern Spain said nobody even mentioned ‘Brexit’ to him, not even after copious amounts of vino tinto. This would confirm your experience and that of others – https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2018/07/16/news/platform-brexit-a-view-from-europe-1382916. Understandably they have more pressing issues.
Brexit will only be of interest if the UK wants to adopt a ‘Singapore style’ tax system ,the interest will come as economic sanctions from the EU ,USA and other WTO members.
I also have a set of European partners in another H2020 project – same deal, little interest in Brexit itself or the UK getting “a good deal”.
Just as you say, a little curious as to what the deal will be and also …, actually being keen on Scotland joining as an independant nation state* – asking when that’s likely to happen (who knows? – being the only possible response).
*(3 Scottish partners in that particular project)
Ditto: Re-unification of Ireland also seems to be thought likely. The Republic of Ireland will be backed all the way you have think.
But they don’t seem to care all that much what the Brexit deal is, or even if there is one – handing their own heads of state and the EU negotiators pretty much carte blanche to play ball hard or soft in response to the UK’s posturing/offers. The Brexiteers look to have made a fatal mistake in their “it will hurt them as much as it will hurt us” mantra.
In retirement I am increasingly credible as a ‘yesterday’s man’. Much as the economists of financial doom wayed in heavily at the end of the Scottish Independence campaign, we are now being told by the BoE Richard will be out of joy taxwise as no one will be able to pay any after Brexit. I can hear the heralds of a second vote already and look forward to a few days in Danish bodegas being personally consoled as yesterday’s news. I wish I was the eminence grise behind Brexit – my aim obviously being to expose the incompetence of the Tory party and mass media to the British public. The laughs I have provided were surely worth a couple of trips to the polling station!
I live in Italy; follow the UK news and regularly communicate with friends who reside in other EU Member States. Brexit is rarely mentioned, if it is, usually in joking terms. I frequently scan Danish, French; German and, naturally, Italian newspapers for Brexit news. If there is anything, it seems to be given the same importance as the Births, Deaths and Marriages sections; presumably where the divorce announcement will appear on 30 March 2019!!!!
Anecdotally, I spend a lot of time travelling on the continent, and I stay in France every Summer. I don’t think any of my friends there mentioned Brexit more than once, in passing, with a puzzled look on their face.
They’re just concerned it’ll make things more difficult for me. I try to zap Brexit while I’m on holiday, so don’t launch into the ins and outs. I’m sure they’d be quite confused anyway.
Farmers are the only ones who show more interest, and quite bluntly admit that their EU subsidies will be cut by around 5% as a result of Brexit. They’re annoyed…but then they’re French farmers, what else would they be…
They’re annoyed, will no doubt be inconvenienced, but will manage. None of the ones I know are afraid of going under as a result, unlike sheep farmers I know here, in Wales.
As for fishing, the UK media didn’t seem to mention a mini fishing war taking place in the Common Fishing zone in August.
It was vicious, could have caused loss of life. British boats illegally started dredging for scallops, when French boats followed the EU regulations which only allows dredging from November so the stocks may replenish properly. And goodness knows French fishermen are no saints when it comes to obeying the rules, some behaved like thugs, pushing British boats with theirs, sometimes violently. This was quite a thing in Brittany and Normandy over the Summer.
A taste of things to come…
Yes, I was recently in France for three weeks and Brexit featured not once on the main TV news. (Which personally was something of a blessed relief, actually.) Ordinary people simply think the British have lost their collective marbles – an extraordinary act of self-harm – but that’s our problem, not theirs. The people I talked to were however aware that Scotland’s position was quite different, were quite sympathetic, and curious as to the likely outcome.
It’s true that very little news about Brexit is ever mentioned here in France where we have lived full-time for 5 years. Friends simply cannot understand why people voted leave. We will be visiting the UK this week with a French friend, he wants to see the area we came from and Hadrian’s wall is high on his list, he made the comment ” I can go anywhere in Europe without any problem there are no borders to cross and I don’t need to change my money. How strange that people in the UK want to go back in time.”
The brexit effect has not gone away on a bureaucratic level though and for people like us who moved here as a right, we are having to now apply for the right to live here. Many people are finding this difficult and worrying. In some parts of France with a high immigrant population people have been given appointments up to one year in advance before they can be seen. Others have not filed any tax forms because they are under the earnings level for tax and thought they didn’t need to, however, in France everyone has to file a tax form. To qualify for a permanent carte de sejour you have to have a good deal of evidence to demonstrate your right to residence. We know a family who have lived here for 20 years but have only been allowed a temporary carte de sejour because their income level is below that required by the State, it’s possible they might be refused residency next time and have to return to the UK. They own their home in France but could not afford buy anything that equates to their life here, in the UK. We know of another person who has been refused a carte de sejour because, whilst receiving treatment for cancer, she has not been able to earn enough over the past few years to prove that she is able to support herself in France coupled with the fact she will have to now pay for her own very expensive, and to her unaffordable, treatment. There are many such stories and let’s not forget brexit, caused a drop in the exchange rate leaving incomes at around 25% lower and beyond many peoples comfort zone.
Your friend in France may know of this already, but just in case, she may want to check this out: PUMA Health Insurance Charge 2016/17.
The information may have been updated, but she can look it up.
Best of luck with your admin battle, be patient and persistent…the town hall may be a good place to look for advice, directly talk to the mayor, they won’t be keen to lose any constituents (and local tax payers).
Thanks Marie,
At this point, we are still in the EU so her treatment is free. The problem will potentially arise on the 30th March if no agreement is reached. Because she is unable to work she cannot get a carte de sejour and would therefore be unable to register under PUMA, she would have to leave France. She is just one person caught up in an impossible situation and like so many others suffering genuine fear for the future. Below the water line, the hidden part of Brexit collateral damage is what they like to call it, as if that makes things OK!
I saw this today and became very scared:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/18/rightwing-thinktanks-unveil-radical-plan-for-us-uk-brexit-trade-deal-nhs
We have discussed this on this blog before.
Rightly so……