Here, it is worth looking to two other European countries that passed on EU membership: Norway, with a GDP per capita close to $70,000; and Switzerland, with a GDP of $60,000. Not all economies are comparable—Norway lives off oil and fish—but the GDP per capita of the United Kingdom just exceeds $40,000. In other words, there is no absolute link between membership in the EU and national wealth. Furthermore, although they are non-members, Norway and Switzerland are deeply integrated in the regulatory framework of the EU, which facilitates their commerce with the region. [...]
For such a rosy outcome, though, time is of the essence. The new British prime minister should rush to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which starts the process of secession. Rapid agreement on a framework between London and Brussels will soothe Britons and allow European public opinion to move on to other topics. The sooner the United Kingdom is out of European minds, and the EU is out of British minds, the sooner the noxious politics of Brexit can be laid to rest. By defusing the political question, a rapid framework agreement will leave bureaucrats and lawyers months, maybe years, to finesse behind closed doors the commercial and regulatory details. In the end, when it comes to economic integration, the EU-UK relationship may not look very different pre- and post-Brexit. And no one will care.
After all, whether Brexit costs a quarter or half of a percentage point of GDP—or nets it—it is not consequential to most voters. The vote was more about the apparent end of a treasured way of life, about alien products in the supermarket, and about ethnic food where the fish and chips used to be. The Brexit result was aspirational, a nostalgic appeal to a past that can never be reclaimed, because the United Kingdom is already far more open and cosmopolitan than its voters wish it to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment