Brexit: What changed for customs and taxation on 1 February 2020? On 22 October 2019, the House of Commons agreed, by 329 votes to 299, to give a second reading to the revised withdrawal agreement (negotiated by Boris Johnson earlier this month), but when the accelerated timetable it had proposed did not receive the necessary parliamentary support, Johnson announced that the law would be overturned. [38] On the issue of the Irish border, there is a northern Ireland protocol (the „backstop“) which is attached to the agreement and establishes a position of withdrawal that will only come into force if effective alternative arrangements are not demonstrated before the end of the transitional period. In this case, the UK will eclipse the EU`s common external tariff and Northern Ireland will stick to aspects of the internal market until such an event is carried out. Neither party can unilaterally withdraw from this customs union. The aim of this backstop agreement is to avoid a „hard“ border in Ireland, where customs controls are needed. [19] From 1 January 2021, the UK will no longer be part of the EU customs union. As of that date, all goods entering EU customs territory from or leaving EU customs territory for the United Kingdom are subject to customs procedures under EU law. This will also be the case if a free trade agreement can be concluded with the United Kingdom. During the transition period, the UK is no longer a member state, but remains in the EU customs union and the internal market and remains bound by obligations under all EU international agreements. The request for withdrawal, which argued Article 50 of the Eu Lisbon Treaty (Eu Treaty of Lisbon), was formally presented to the President of the Council of the European Union on 29 March 2017. In the area of taxation and customs, there are „custody instructions“ updated in 2019: the 2019 revisions have also adapted elements of the political declaration and replaced the word „appropriate“ with „appropriate“ with regard to labour standards. According to Sam Lowe, a trade fellow at the Centre for European Reform, the amendment excludes labour standards from dispute resolution mechanisms. [27] In addition, the Equal Competition Mechanism has been postponed from the legally binding withdrawal agreement to the political declaration,[24] and the line of the political statement that „the United Kingdom will consider taking into account alignment with trade union rules in the relevant areas“ has been removed.

[26] The political declaration provides that an agreement between the EU and the UK on their future relations will essentially be an economic and security partnership. In accordance with the political declaration, the 27 EU Member States agreed on 25 February 2020 on the negotiating mandate of the European Commission, which is negotiating on behalf of the Member States on future relations between the EU and the UNITED Kingdom. Complex negotiations were concluded in October 2019 with a withdrawal agreement and a political declaration paving the way for an ordered withdrawal on 31 January 2020. On 3 February 2020, the European Commission recommended that the Council begin negotiations for a new partnership with the UNITED Kingdom.