23 marzo 2017

el BREXIT es inminente

Será el próximo 29 de marzo. Y tendrá repercusiones amplias… Desde Bloomberg:

What Comes Next After May Starts Brexit March 29: QuickTake Q&A (Bloomberg)

Nine months after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May is planning to open divorce proceedings on March 29. The negotiations could turn “vicious,” according to Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says they will be “very, very, very difficult.” Both the EU and the U.K. will have to determine what is and isn’t negotiable.

1. Didn’t Brexit already happen?

No. The June 2016 referendum, in which 52 percent of British voters chose to leave the European Union, was just the start of a lengthy proceeding. If May has her way, the actual split will occur around April 2019. Its contours are about to be negotiated.

2. What does Brexit actually mean?

Britain is exiting the 28-country EU bloc, which it joined in 1973. Initially envisaged as a free-trade zone that now includes 500 million consumers, the EU is, in the eyes of many Britons, too bureaucratic, out of touch, expensive and an obstacle to clamping down on immigration. Free movement of citizens is a basic tenet of EU law.

3. How does the exit process work?

Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s guiding document, details how a country leaves the bloc. It’s never been activated and is only about 260 words long. It gives the departing country up to two years to negotiate “its future relationship with the Union.”

4. When did the two-year clock start ticking?

It hasn’t yet. After the U.K. Supreme Court ruled she didn’t have the authority to trigger Article 50 by herself, May filed a short (137 words) bill to obtain permission from Parliament. Some parliamentary wrangling was needed before the bill became law because although the House of Commons passed it, the unelected upper House of Lords rewrote it to demand guarantees for EU citizens already living in Britain and a “meaningful vote” on the final deal. It finally became law on March 16 after May got the amendments overturned by the lower house and the Queen signed the legislation. On March 20, the government said its envoy to the EU, Tim Barrow, had informed EU President Donald Tusk that Article 50 will be activated on March 29.

5. How quickly would talks start?

Tusk has said the EU will respond within 48 hours and then EU leaders will convene a summit to sign off on the guidelines for Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s chief negotiator. Officials have said the bloc may wait until June to fully engage although September elections in Germany will also serve as a distraction.

6. What will May push for?

She intends to pull the U.K. out of the single market for goods and services -- a “hard” or “clean” Brexit that prioritizes securing control of immigration, laws and her budget over economic concerns. May wants the “best possible deal” for trading with the bloc although she wants the liberty she now lacks to land trade deals with non-EU countries such as the U.S.

7. What will Europe want?

Remaining EU members don’t want the U.K. to “cherry pick” the benefits of membership with none of the responsibilities (like agreeing to freedom of labor movement), lest others be encouraged to leave as well. Many European countries are going to seek a guarantee of the rights of their citizens living in the U.K. May wants the same for Britons living abroad and says this is an issue to resolve early on. The Republic of Ireland, an EU member, says it will fight any attempt to restore a so-called hard border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. Then there’s the question of the bill the U.K. will be asked to pay.

8. Wait -- there’s a bill?

Europe says there is. Barnier has indicated he wants the British to cover budget commitments they agreed to, pension payments promised to EU officials from the U.K., guarantees on loans such as the bailout of Ireland, and pending infrastructure projects. The sum is said to be around 60 billion euros and officials say that until this matter is settled they won’t discuss a trade deal. British Trade Secretary Liam Fox rejected the notion of a bill as “absurd,” and The Times reported government lawyers believe there is no legal obligation to pay anything. May has said she won’t fund any project initiated after November 2016. She still may be willing to contribute something to win some continued access to the single market although too big an amount will draw ire domestically.

9. How will the talks be structured?

Barnier wants to focus first on the separation -- settling the bill, resolving citizenship rights and establishing borders. Only after that would he turn to trade. The British would prefer to discuss the split and the new future trade arrangement at the same time to win trade-offs and grant certainty to businesses.

10. How long will the talks take?

Article 50 allows two years, which could be extended if all members of the EU, including the U.K., agree. Both sides estimate that they really have until the end of 2018 to reach an accord, because the resulting deal would need to obtain the consent of the European and British parliaments. EU officials have said even in the best case it will take until early 2018 to work out the financial side of the split.

11. What happens if no deal is reached?

Britain would leave the EU in two years regardless of whether it’s secured a new trade deal. In that case, disagreements may end up in the courts and U.K.-EU commerce will be exposed to World Trade Organization tariffs, following decades of duty-free trade. That could mean taxes of about 10 percent on cars alone. U.K. Brexit Secretary David Davis says this is an “unlikely scenario” and not “frightening,” but one Britain must prepare for although he conceded in March that the government hasn’t yet analyzed the economic fallout. Businesses worry about a “cliff edge” in which the U.K. falls or walks out of the EU with tariffs and without certainty over the future. May says no deal is better than a bad deal.

12. What could help avert a ‘cliff edge’?

The U.K. and EU could agree to a transitional phase in which the existing relationship remains in effect. Businesses would get time to adjust to any new rules, which May says should be phased in. The question is whether the two sides can agree to a transitional phase before businesses, especially banks based in the U.K., shift jobs and services to elsewhere in the EU. Another bugbear for May is if the EU tried to force the U.K. to remain under the oversight of the European Court of Justice.

13. Does May have any leverage?

The U.K. loses some power after invoking Article 50 because it starts the countdown clock, limiting the time available to strike a deal. May has argued it would be “economically rational” for the EU to sign up to a free-trade accord since Britons buy so much of its goods. She has warned that the U.K. could provide less security to the region or transform Britain into a low-tax, light-regulation haven for business. She could also try to exploit differences between European capitals.

14. What about Scotland?

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has used Brexit to declare she’ll start the legal process of preparing for a second independence referendum. Scottish voters chose to remain in the EU and Sturgeon says they should have a chance to break with England in a vote sometime between the fall of 2018 and the spring of 2019. May says “now is not the time” for another referendum.

15. Is Article 50 irrevocable?

Once Article 50 is triggered, there’s no chance of Britain staying in the EU, according to Justice Secretary Liz Truss. But former diplomat John Kerr, who helped write the treaty, said a country can change its mind “while the process is going on.” A court case is starting soon which may inform the debate.

16. Why does all this matter for the rest of the world?

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is running on a Brexit-like platform of euro-skepticism. In the U.S., President Donald Trump’s administration has registered its dislike of multilateral organizations like the EU and may be tempted to offer the U.K. a generous free-trade deal. Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely welcome anything that divides and distracts the EU. Finally, China will be following closely to see if the U.K. remains an attractive investment partner as it raises barriers with the rest of the EU.
Abrazos,
PD1: En Reuters escriben sobre quién se llevará la palma quedándose con el negocio bancario:
A España (Madrid o Barcelona) ni la nombran. No me cabía duda… Aunque permíteme que discrepe. No creo que los británicos permitan que se les largue la Citi a otro país…
PD2: Ha habido un castigo en las bolsa estos días. Pero hay que ponerlo en perspectiva con lo que había pasado antes:
Había habido muchas razones para vender en los últimos años:
Pero el mercado pudo con todas…
Aunque no olvides que el que está caro es el yanqui, no el europeo o el emergente…
El problema es que las estimaciones de incremento de beneficios, que es lo que se cotiza en bolsa, no han ido al mismo ritmo que la subida de las acciones estadounidenses…:
Visto con más perspectiva:
Y ha hecho encarecer sobre manera los precios:
PD3: De nuevo otra caricia de Dios… Un hijo mío se había empeñado en pasar el verano en Calcuta con las Hermanitas de la Caridad de la Madre Teresa. Nos daba terror que se fuera solo sin conocer a nadie allí. Al final un amigo suyo se animó y se va con él. Ahora se van los dos, que se acompañarán y cuidarán uno del otro. Tantas gracias debemos darle al Señor todos los días. Nos escucha siempre nuestra plegaria, y luego nos hace caso o no, en función si lo considera oportuno… Gracias de nuevo!!!
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