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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/28/what-uk-options-outside-eu
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| Version 2 | Version 3 |
|---|---|
| What are the UK's options outside the EU? | What are the UK's options outside the EU? |
| (8 days later) | |
| The Norwegian option: access to the single market in services and goods outside the customs union | The Norwegian option: access to the single market in services and goods outside the customs union |
| The worst of all worlds. It would literally be: not in the EU but run by it. The City accounts for 10% of UK GDP. So most of the rules that govern the City would be made by people who have absolutely no interest in it. Norway is subject to rules of origin, which works because most of its exports come in the form of raw materials such as fish oil. But the UK has a lot of import-export business; it could be bad for UK exports. | The worst of all worlds. It would literally be: not in the EU but run by it. The City accounts for 10% of UK GDP. So most of the rules that govern the City would be made by people who have absolutely no interest in it. Norway is subject to rules of origin, which works because most of its exports come in the form of raw materials such as fish oil. But the UK has a lot of import-export business; it could be bad for UK exports. |
| The Swiss option: access to single market subject to negotiation | The Swiss option: access to single market subject to negotiation |
| It could potentially work, but because the Swiss option is so complicated – subject to a cobweb of bilateral agreements – it would be extremely tricky. In that two-year framework Britain has under the Lisbon treaty's leaving clause, Britain would basically have no influence over EU laws but would be subject to all of them. | It could potentially work, but because the Swiss option is so complicated – subject to a cobweb of bilateral agreements – it would be extremely tricky. In that two-year framework Britain has under the Lisbon treaty's leaving clause, Britain would basically have no influence over EU laws but would be subject to all of them. |
| The Turkish option: single market in goods membership and de facto membership of customs union | The Turkish option: single market in goods membership and de facto membership of customs union |
| You are not party to the EU's external trade negotiations. It has some attractive elements because you are part of the thing most people want to be part of – the single market in goods. But you take yourself out of a lot of key elements of EU decision-making. | You are not party to the EU's external trade negotiations. It has some attractive elements because you are part of the thing most people want to be part of – the single market in goods. But you take yourself out of a lot of key elements of EU decision-making. |
| The clean-break WTO option | The clean-break WTO option |
| This is the only option that does not require a renegotiation of some sort. A lot of costs at the border under the WTO model that are very difficult to get away from – tariffs, rules of origin, sensitive products, non-trade tariff barriers. | This is the only option that does not require a renegotiation of some sort. A lot of costs at the border under the WTO model that are very difficult to get away from – tariffs, rules of origin, sensitive products, non-trade tariff barriers. |
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