madam president most people know but many do not that shortly after a country becomes a member of the eu all its trade agreements are negotiated by the commission and specifically the eu trade commissioner
under this arrangement the interests of all twenty-seven member states need to be satisfied which of course means in practice that they will not be
in consequence an eu-negotiated trade agreement is likely to be less beneficial for an individual member state and i have to say the uk in particular than if the member state had been able to negotiate for itself
now the rationale for all this is that the eu is a large trading bloc and because of this clout the eu is able to negotiate a trade treaty that would not be open to a member state to negotiate on its own
but what do we find here
the negotiations for the eu trade treaty with japan have not even properly started as the commissioner said
meanwhile the comparatively small but dynamic economy of switzerland already has a trade treaty with japan and has had since two thousand and nine
once again here is further proof that the uk and the other contributing member states would be much better off outside the bureaucratic contraption that is the european union
