Article 50 and Geneva

Over the last few days a lot of people have asked me whether triggering Article 50 changes anything here in Geneva. The short answer is: no, it doesn’t.

During the next two years the United Kingdom will remain a full member of the European Union, with all that that entails in terms of rights and responsibilities. My colleagues in London and Brussels who are involved in the Article 50 negotiations will now be very busy. But here, over the next two years, my highly professional EU colleagues and their teams will continue to support coordination among all 28 member states in the UN agencies and the WTO. And I and my team will continue to participate in that coordination, helping to arrive at common EU positions wherever possible, and then putting the UK’s weight behind delivering them.

Once we leave the European Union, the process of EU coordination will change for us but not, I suspect, much of the substance. Today, the EU Delegation and the EU Member States are among the UK’s closest allies and partners in the UN agencies and bodies in Geneva; in UNHCR, the WHO, the Human Rights Council, the ILO and so on. That will remain true after we leave the EU. That’s because we in Europe share a similar approach to democracy, the rule of law, the role of the state, and the rights of individuals. And just as importantly, we also share a commitment to a rules-based international system; and we have the resources, and the sense of responsibility, to underpin that system.

So in practice, apart from establishing new systems to coordinate with our EU allies once we are outside the EU, little will change. There are 37 international organisations and agencies based in Geneva. The UK is currently represented in all of them. We won’t need to accede to the UN or any other international agency in Geneva. We’re members already.

That’s true too of the World Trade Organisation. The UK is a founding member in its own right. Here, however, we will need to complete a more complex technical process to replicate our current position. Our trade regime in the WTO is currently expressed collectively with the other EU Member States, through technical documents known as Schedules. Before we leave the EU we will need to establish our own UK-only Schedules. We are committed to a smooth transition in the WTO, one that is as transparent as possible and avoids disrupting anyone’s trade. We have therefore already begun informal consultations with the WTO membership over how best to do this. And throughout this process we will work closely with the EU, seeking coordinated approaches that reassure the WTO membership as a whole.

As in the UN, so in the WTO, I expect the EU to be one of our closest and most important partners once we have left the EU. We will be allies in supporting the cause of trade liberalization and a rules-based multilateral trading system. Our economies, our companies, our supply chains, will remain deeply entwined. Our interests as advanced and open economies will be closely aligned. We will both want to embed the growing global trade in services, as well as the digital economy, into the multilateral system, and to defend that system.

The Article 50 negotiations will be complex and at times fraught. We can expect ups and downs and plenty of commentary from all sides. But here in Geneva, the UK Mission will remain focused on three things. First, that the UK is leaving the EU, not the multilateral system. Second, that one of the best ways of demonstrating this is by advancing an ambitious agenda in Geneva, which is one of the most important centres of that system. And third, that the EU and its Member States are among our closest allies and will remain so.

Over the next two years the UK will go out of its way to reassure its friends and allies around the world of our commitment to the rules-based international system. We intend to play our part.