LONDON: A British government minister has raised the prospect that the U.K. could seek to stay in the customs union even after leaving the European Union, in a further sign that Prime Minister Theresa May’s team may be softening its approach to Brexit.
The government is considering keeping membership of the customs union for certain products, Trade Minister Greg Hands suggested in an interview with Bloomberg this week. He said the government is “looking at broad possibilities” for how such unions can operate, as he explained what May meant when she said in November that membership was not “binary.”
“You can choose which markets, which products the customs unions affect and which they don’t — so there isn’t a binary thing of being inside the customs union or outside of the customs union,” Hands said. “The history of international trade has got all kinds of examples of customs unions.”
Europe’s customs union allows members to enjoy tariff-free trade among each other and imposes the same duties on external countries. Hands’s comments signal the U.K. could be planning to seek agreements on duty-free trade with the EU for individual sectors, hoping that the likes of Germany will agree so as to protect access to the British market for their own exporters.
In a further sign that the government may be relaxing its stance, Brexit Secretary David Davis on Thursday suggested for the first time that the U.K. may be willing to pay the EU to ensure the best possible access to Europe’s single market for goods and services. The single market is broader than the customs union and also allows the free movement of capital, services and people.
