PRESS: European Union spurns UK push to create single market for goods

(Alliance News) - The European Union has rebuffed a UK government push to access its single market for goods ahead of a summit set for July, UK press reports last week said.

According to the Financial Times on Friday, Britain had suggested it aligned with EU regulations to enable companies to trade freely with the 451 million-strong bloc.

But the European Commission said it would only discuss the "reset" package of measures agreed at last year's summit along with co-operation on defence and migration, the FT report said.

Two EU diplomats told the FT that the idea of a single market for goods was rejected, although it could be revived as a future area of work at the summit, expected in mid-July.

"One concern was the UK could get a better deal than member states" by undercutting regulations, they added. "The UK did not want dynamic alignment on services. And many goods now include services, so there is a competitiveness issue. It would not be a level playing field."

The UK would also not accept freedom of movement - one of the so-called four freedoms alongside goods, services and capital that underpin the single market. However, there was a "tacit understanding" it would contribute to the EU budget if a deal could have been agreed, according to the diplomats, the FT added.

Last Thursday, the Guardian said the UK government pitched the creation of a single market for goods with the EU as part of an attempt to reintegrate British trade back into Europe.

During recent visits to Brussels, the Cabinet Office's top official on EU relations, Michael Ellam, presented the idea to deepen the UK’s economic relationship with the bloc, the report said.

But as with the FT, Guardian sources said that EU officials rejected the idea and instead suggested a customs union or economic alignment through the European Economic Area.

UK government sources, however, denied that the EU had definitively rejected a single market for goods and said it was among a range of options being discussed before a summit tentatively pencilled in for 13 July, the report added.

By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter

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