From today’s Open Europe news summary:
Ireland demands level playing field in any Brexit deal
Speaking at a meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP) in Helsinki yesterday, the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said that Ireland wants the future relationship between the EU and UK “to be as close as possible” but added that it “must provide a level playing field and the integrity of our single market must be upheld.”
Elsewhere, Reuters reports that the European Commission also stresses the importance of such a commitment, quoting one EU official explaining that “It is important that Britain would not undercut our own products on our own market in the all-UK Irish backstop.”
Meanwhile, Cabinet Brexiteers have reportedly warned Prime Minister Theresa May that obligations on a level playing field “would mean a single market through the backdoor.”
Here you have the EU position in a nutshell. The EU is to be a closed trading bloc in which its citizens will be forced to buy shoddy, overprices goods produced within the bloc. Why the rest of the sovereign nations of the EU have remained in this blatantly inhumane association for so long is mystifying, except that continental Europeans have experienced many centuries of governmental dictatorships under many forms rather than the Anglo-Saxon tradition of the common law and government being responsible to the people.
Patrick Barron
