Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:42 pm on 26 February 2020.
The Member's gift for caricature remains undiminished. That is not the EU's position. What the political declaration said, which both the European Union and the UK Government have signed—have agreed—is that, at the end of the transition period, the standards that apply in both, including in the level-playing-field context, should continue to apply. It is not the case that you can draw a simple parallel with the Canadian free-trade agreement. The UK Government is seeking a zero-tariff, zero-quota agreement. The Canadian agreement is not that—it took seven years to negotiate. It represents a tenth of the trade that the UK does with the European Union, and it's 5,000 km away. There is simply no comparison in trade terms. And to expect the same provisions to be applicable in a deal with your nearest neighbour, with 10 per cent more trade, as you impose on a much less significant, in volume terms, trading partner on the other side of the world, I think, is just fanciful.