Mobility and the EU By Eszter Kantor, our EU Expert.

The UK government has published its ideas for a future relationship between the EU and the UK. The paper calls for a far reaching and all-encompassing trade agreement including tariff-free trade, mutual recognition of qualifications, mutual market access for financial services, mobility framework to enable professionals to travel and work freely. The UK government also commits to abiding by EU competition guidelines but fails to mention whether or not it would adhere by EU taxation principles including VAT thresholds and common corporate taxation guidelines including country by country reporting of multinationals. There is no mention of reversal in the position of the UK government regarding the rule of the European Court of Justice and freedom of movement, both of which had been rejected previously.

Therefore, this paper is really only a reiteration of past statements by the UK Government. There are still significant gaps between the positions of the EU and the UK, taking for example the status of UK financial service providers, who will lose their passporting rights and their access to the EU market something that will eventually benefit Paris and Frankfurt. It is unlikely that these newly found benefits would be reversed in the short term. The mention of a mobility framework is a great success for Fashion Roundtable, as it echoes our requests for a common EU level work visa that the industry`s freelancer could utilise. We are very happy to see it as an ask and will work towards making this a reality.