Agreement reached to ‘slash red tape’ on food products, in exchange for extended EU access to fishing waters

The deal – which will grant EU fishers access to British waters for an additional 12 years – will remove checks on a significant number of food products as well as a deeper defence partnership and agreements on carbon taxes.

The UK said the deal would make “food cheaper, slash red tape, open up access to the EU market”. But the trade-off for the deal was fishing access and rights for an additional 12 years – more than the UK had offered – which is likely to lead to cries of betrayal from the industry.

The two sides will also begin talks for a “youth experience scheme”, first reported in the Guardian, which could allow young people to work and travel freely in Europe again and mirror existing schemes the UK has with countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

The government said it would put £360m of modernisation support back into coastal communities as part of the deal, a tacit acknowledgment of the concession.

  • mbirth@lemmy.mlEnglish
    11·
    4 days ago

    Nobody voted for the people sitting in lovely Brussels and making decisions that impact all member countries in all their different situations. It was good when it was still the EEC and meant to improve trading between member countries. And trading only. How we ended up with this monster of EU trying to dictate things like you can’t sell cucumbers which are curved more than X degrees, or banning incandescent and halogen light bulbs, and stuff like that… I don’t know. But I don’t like it.

    • HumanPenguin@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      Yep they did.

      Every nation in the EU is a democracy it is a requirement.

      They elect there leaders. Those leaders send representatives to the council.

      And citizens elect mep that approve or reject council mandates.

      • mbirth@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        At least in Germany you vote for parties. These parties then create coalitions which water down most of the reasons why they were elected in the first place.

        The guy in the EU council is supposed to be the highest leader of each country. In Germany that’s the Chancellor. Which is elected by those parties/coalitions. You as a normal person have no say in who it’s going to be.

        Same for the EU commission. You have no real influence on who’s going.

        Then those parties/coalitions create lists of candidates for becoming MEPs. You vote for those lists. There’s no way to vote for specific people to go to the EU parliament. And those lists are basically suggestions as people can be crossed out or exchanged on those lists even after the elections are over.

        • HumanPenguin@feddit.ukEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          Sure. But that is not the EUs problem. It is an issue with the UK. And not one we needed to leave the EU to fix. But instead agree on a party willing to change it.

          The UK electorate has not been able to do that.

          Much like most other EU nations got to vote on expansion of the EU mandate.

          Our democratic leadership chose not to. So we again voted them in power so did get to vote.

          The whole Brexit argument was based on UK government failure being pushed as EU issues. It sure as hell was not the EU as an org that lacks democratic ideals.