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Japan Goes Public With Brexit Demands, Says Data Flow Deals Must Be Protected (arstechnica.com)
Kelly Fiveash, writing for ArsTechnica:UK Prime minister Theresa May said at the weekend that she wanted to take her time to secure the best trade deals for a post-Brexit Britain, and reiterated -- in her trademark vague terms -- that the so-called Article 50 won't be triggered this year. But political pressure from governments as far away as Japan continues to mount. On Sunday, in a bold move, the Japanese government published a 15-page memo setting out a number of demands it wants the UK to adhere to, once it leaves the European Union. It underscored that Britain faces a torrid time of negotiations -- not just with member states in the EU, but further afield, too. Japan, which has close economic ties with the UK, listed its demands based on requests from businesses in the country. It said; "It is of great importance that the UK and the EU maintain market integrity and remain attractive destinations for businesses where free trade, unfettered investment, and smooth financial transactions are ensured." It's brutal stuff from Japan, and could well lead to other countries making similarly robust demands. On tech specifically, the Japanese government called on the UK and EU, post-Brexit, to maintain cloud agreements between businesses at an international level, by safeguarding the "free transfer of data."
... invoke Article 50 first, leave, and then we will talk about special trade deals. You voted to leave, so leave already.
Half of Japan's investments into EU have gone into Britain, seeing as a gateway to the EU. Now they are scared shitless that they have bet on the wrong horse. EU tariffs on cars and other products produced in GB means all those factories were built on the wrong side of the channel.
I keep reading this 'the old' stuff. Are people aware that these same 'old' will be the people who voted into it in the 1970s? And will, in fact, be the only people who have seen the evolution of the whole situation?
Leaving the EU was a huge mistake. The old, who voted for it out of xenophobia, will be dead by the time we will feel the consequences.
That's what this generation of old people do. This generation - not the previous ones. Previous generations of old people tried their level best to be more like wise elders and guiding lights, repositories of wisdom that the youngers would have been utterly foolish to disregard.
What you describe in the EU is in the same spirit as what is happening in the USA. Look what the Baby Boomers have done to their grandchildren. In American history they are the first generation to leave their descendants with LESS than they enjoyed. Every previous generation has done its best to leave an inheritance, to ensure their posterity enjoyed a better life than what they knew.
I don't know if the aftermath and long-term repercussions of WWII just broke their spirits and made them into fearful self-centered short-sighted self-important ever-entitled people, or what, but it's one of the saddest things I've witnessed.
Angela Merkel, arguably the most powerful of the EU leaders, said there's no need to be nasty to the UK in response to Brexit (i.e. punish them, as you're suggesting). The reality is that the UK will be punishing itself, because it's leaving the club (the EU) and losing the benefits, including free trade with the rest of the EU. This fact alone is enough for any company which had its EU headquarters in the UK to realize they probably need to move to the continent. That's a lot of jobs leaving the country.
www.gaiageek.com
japanese businesses invested in the UK by opening factories, creating jobs etc on the basis of us being a door into the EU market so they are now evaluating that if the status quo or similar is not available, they will move their business to the larger market. pure, practical business sense
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
I think Japan's point is that they built a bunch of factories and local headquarters in the UK specifically to deal with the European market. That was the big selling point. With the UK no longer being part of the European market Japan is understandably unhappy. So they give the UK two options:
1. The UK makes sure that Japan doesn't lose much by staying there. That means trade with the EU must work as if the UK were still a member. That means a huge free trade agreement needs to be secured ASAP.
2. A lot of Japanese companies will abandon their UK factories and headquarters and build new ones on the continent because staying in the UK is no longer financially sound. The UK loses a whole bunch of jobs and tax income and the Japanese companies lose a whole bunch of sunk money. Nobody wants this scenario.
Of course scenario 1 is hindered by the fact that the EU isn't keen on making trade agreements with a leaving member before the member has even left. So they're pushing for the UK to just invoke Article 50 already so things can get started.
tl;dr: Yes, the door is open - for Japanese companies to leave the UK. If you want to avoid that you'll have to convince them that trade with the EU won't be impacted by Brexit.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
We (the all-wise, all-knowing bureaucrats) also know that consumption of raw milk products is dangerous therefore you (french, italian, spanish, communities that have been making raw milk cheeses are now declared to be WRONG and OLD FASHIONED. And any production of such products will now be ILLEGAL.................
Of course the fact that no such prohibition exists probably won't stop you from repeating it, will it?
There are some rules with regards raw milk cheese mainly that it has to be produced in a clean environment and it has to be labeled as being produced with raw milk. All of which seems pretty sensible to me.
But don't let me get in the way of a nice rant, try using more caps.
What a rotten party, have we run out of beer or something?
Angela Merkel, arguably the most powerful of the EU leaders, said there's no need to be nasty to the UK in response to Brexit (i.e. punish them, as you're suggesting). The reality is that the UK will be punishing itself, because it's leaving the club (the EU) and losing the benefits, including free trade with the rest of the EU.
Well that's just the thing, isn't it? If Angela Merkel actually said both of those things, then that was the most threatening non-threat she could have uttered. The free trade deals could be kept intact trivially, by signing a new treaty that incorporates the old deal verbatim. That's the least painful path. Anything other than that gets progressively nastier. "Lose the deals, renegotiate from scratch" is quite far along the spectrum toward the nasty end. The only thing nastier steps over the line between free trade deal and not-free trade deal, and progresses to no-deal.
How nasty "no-deal" actually is remains to be seen. It will depend on how many and which staples the UK uses that aren't produced in the UK. This is something MI5 had better be scrambling frantically to understand, as the lack of toilet paper has national security implications, as Venezuela is demonstrating.
That was, after all, one of the stated goals of the union in the first place. It is incontrovertible fact that capitalism tends toward consolidation and eventually monopoly, given no constraints (i.e. free trade). The purpose of free trade is to encourage this process in order to make countries mutually dependent on one another economically, so no one can start another war. UK is sitting at the end of two generations of this process, not really understanding that it has happened and that they need free trade. Without it, there will be very odd price spikes in unexpected things, when it turns out that those things are not made anywhere in the UK. UK does not yet know how nasty things can get.