Key facts
- The 200-page sanitary and phytosanitary text has been settled with no further negotiation, sources said.
- The deal would remove £200 Export Health Certificates and £25 Phytosanitary certificates, plus inspector and sampling fees.
- The government claims the UK economy would eventually see £5.1 billion in annual benefits from the deal.
- Exports of fresh sausages, burgers, domestic shellfish and seed potatoes to the EU would be able to resume.
- The UK would commit to dynamic alignment, observing and adapting to existing EU plant, animal and food trade standards.
- The National Farmers' Union said last month that British food exports to the EU had fallen by a third since Brexit.
The UK and EU have completed a draft deal to remove post-Brexit checks on imports and exports of food and animal products, ranging from sausages and cheese to leather goods and flowers. A 200-page sanitary and phytosanitary text has been settled with no further negotiation, sources said, and will be presented to EU ambassadors at a meeting on Wednesday that will discuss a first draft of a joint statement to be issued by UK prime minister Andy Burnham and EU leaders on November 20.
The deal would remove the need for £200 Export Health Certificates and £25 Phytosanitary certificates, along with inspector fees, organic certificates, some port fees and sampling fees on trade with the EU. The government claims the UK economy would eventually see £5.1 billion in annual benefits. Exports of fresh sausages, burgers, shellfish from domestic waters and seed potatoes would be able to resume, and the agreement would allow passports for UK pets taken into the EU.
Under the agreement the UK would commit to dynamic alignment, observing and adapting to existing EU rules on plant, animal and food trade standards. The government has announced a European Partnerships Bill to provide the legal mechanism for applying new EU rules. The bill would also allow the alignments needed to link the UK emissions trading scheme with the EU's and save UK exporters from paying the EU's new carbon border tax.
The National Farmers' Union said last month that British food exports to the EU had fallen by a third since Brexit, with eggs, chicken and potato products worst hit. The British Chamber of Commerce said 56% of exporting businesses it surveyed wanted EU customs paperwork and delays removed, and 58% of manufacturers in the same survey said the same.
Implementation is not expected until the first quarter of 2028, after a six-month delay to the second EU-UK summit caused by the change in UK prime minister. The Department for Environment and Rural Affairs had said in May, when the deal was largely agreed and published, that it expected implementation in May 2027. Defra has now briefed industry leaders that a further six-month transition period will apply to a handful of key products such as grains grown this year with fungicides not yet approved in the EU. The delay stems from the UK's need to align British food standards legislation with the EU's; the UK has largely followed EU rules but has diverged in some areas such as fungicides used to help crops grow in British wet weather.
Under the proposed framework, retailers in Northern Ireland will no longer have to label products as not for the EU, a process criticized in the past by supermarket chains such as Marks & Spencer. Talks between British and EU officials began in London earlier this year. One transport leader told the parliamentary trade select committee that Brexit paperwork had been pure hell, with one truck held up for as long as 27 days in Calais because it did not have the right certificates for a frozen beef cargo.