What was Britain trying to achieve in direct talks with EU nations?

European Union member states have been told to cooperate only minimally with British requests for information about how they propose to deal with the next wave of checks on goods moving to the UK.

New controls are due to be imposed in October, with further waves of new regulations on individual travel now due next year. Brussels is miffed at the UK’s initiative, as all matters involving trade, customs, and EU single market and customs union rules fall within the bailiwick of the European Commission.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, led by hardline Brexiteer Therese Coffey, sent a troublemaking message to EU member states on 2 June, asking each to fill out a questionnaire on their readiness to issue new sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) certificates for food and agriculture products. After telling member states that it was “harmonising” communication with the UK, the commission shared its own list of more than 70 questions for London, so the exercise seems to have been counterproductive.

It’s not clear how pleased No 10 is with Coffey’s tactics: Rishi Sunak’s general approach is to avoid offence and try to thaw relations with the EU, and he has enjoyed some success with the Windsor Framework and, potentially, with Britain rejoining the Horizon research group.

What are the new rules?

While the EU has been busily checking goods from Britain since Brexit was finalised, with the resultant bureaucracy and delays, the British were much slower, fearing checks would disrupt supply chains for industry and supermarkets. Most things arriving at Dover and other ports were simply waved through.

However, the government now wishes to tighten things up on exports to the UK, so that British firms will be on a “level playing field”. Specifically, a new risk-based model of phytosanitary checks on fresh epicure and livestock will be implemented at the end of October, while safety and security declarations for EU imports will be required from the end of 2024. A digital gateway known as the “single trade window” has been designed in an effort to simplify the way in which importers provide information to the government.

What does the EU say?

It wants to “harmonise” the process, in traditional Brussels fashion; despite the commission’s sometimes overweening ways, it cannot be otherwise. The whole point of the EU, dating back to the Treaty of Rome in 1957, was to establish a common market with free movement of people, capital and goods across frontiers, and for member states to impose identical common external tariffs, quota and customs procedures on all their imports. In such a world, only an EU-wide body can frame such regulations. Much the same goes for the single market, in which product definitions and standards need to be agreed and implemented by all member states.

What were the British playing at?

The most innocent explanation is that Britain was merely trying to establish how each state would be applying a common policy. A less charitable explanation is that the British have been trying to circumvent the European Commission because it has more clout than any individual state; there are also suspicions that the UK wants to divide the EU, or to pretend that the EU isn’t as important as fellow sovereign states.

How much success have the British had?

None, as is inevitable in matters that are the exclusive competence of the EU itself, as defined and operated under binding treaties. Britain’s largest trading partners, Germany and France, are in any case hostile to any crude British manoeuvre that might undermine EU unity.

What about the UK-Italian partnership agreement, or deals with France on migrants, or the UK Joint Expeditionary Force?

Eyebrows were raised when business secretary Kemi Badenoch travelled to Rome to sign the grandly titled UK-Italy Export and Investment Partnership. However, the substance of the agreement was somewhat underwhelming, amounting to nothing more than a structure for a series of meetings between Italian and British business leaders and officials – essentially an export promotion exercise based on goodwill.

There have also been bilateral agreements with France over irregular migration across the English Channel, but again, this is an area in which the EU has limited authority – and in any case, France is careful to preserve EU prerogatives.

The UK Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) dates back to 2012, when both the EU and Nato were fairly weak organisations in the fields of foreign policy and defence. It sought to combine a mixture of EU, non-EU, Nato and neutral nations into an anti-Russia front. Its members were the UK (acting as leader), plus Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway.

Members of the JEF are mandated to “act jointly and with allies, but able to act alone”. It came into its own during Boris Johnson’s time as premier, in the early stages of the war in Ukraine, when some members of the EU and Nato were disinclined to get involved and confront Russia. That has now changed, as Nato has become more active, and now that formerly neutral Finland and Sweden have taken the path to full membership. This field is one in which Britain enjoys some strength, and the JEF causes less offence in Brussels than initiatives in the economic field.

What’s next?

Britain will seek to avoid or postpone the proposed new EU rules that require fingerprints and other biometric data for short visits. The system will apply from next summer, after the Paris Olympics, to anyone entering 25 EU countries (that is, all of the member states except Cyprus and Ireland), and four non-EU countries (Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein), which are part of the border-free Schengen area.

EU travel authorisation will last for three years (after which it will need to be renewed for future visits), or until the holder’s passport expires (whichever is sooner). It will cost €7 (£6) for people aged 18 to 70. The checks are likely to prove unpopular with British holidaymakers and business travellers alike.