EU just can't afford to give the UK a good deal since this will start a chain reaction with other dissatisfied countries. Sadly this will only end up being a lose/lose situation.
Couple that with the fact that Britain now needs to negotiate a deal where every member has diverging interests and everybody basically has a veto: France and Germany want the British financial sector, Poland wants free travel and work permits for all the polish expats in the UK, Ireland wants to keep the intra-irish border open. Norther Ireland wants free travel for its citizens to the Republic. Spain probably wants to retain tourism from the UK. All states with a coastal line to the Atlantic and Northern sea will squabble over fishing rights... Couple that with a British vote that runs contrary to open borders, lacking numbers of negotiation staff on the British side and no discernible goal of what should be negotiated. On top a British foreign minster that made a living as journalist bashing the EU. All of that on a timeline of 2 years and a hard deadline that needs an unanimous vote to extend.
Edit: Oh, and upcoming elections in Germany and France. /Edit
I can't see that ending well for the UK. It's likely that the EU will suffer as well as the consequence, but on the other hand the British were always dragging their heels somewhat. I consider it sad from a balance perspective: Britain could have been a good counterweight for Germany and France in the EU if they actually tried to shape it instead of making a half-assed show of being in, but not.
The negotiating difficulty for the EU is that it's only in control of part of the real deal for the UK.
One other big part is how well the UK can develop its relationships with the rest of the world if it's no longer constrained by things like the customs union.
A third part, perhaps more easily overlooked, is how well the UK can develop its internal economy without the constraints of EU regulations. Right now, EU regulations affect not just goods and services exported to the EU, and not even just goods and services exported at all, but also a lot of things that are bought and sold within the UK itself.
These other factors mean that for almost any area of importance in the coming negotiations, there will be some limit beyond which the UK is better off taking its ball and going home, and then playing with the rest of the world instead of the EU tomorrow, purely on economic grounds. Of course, it's going to be extremely difficult for either the EU or the UK to work out exactly where those limits are, which is surely going to be a fundamental difficulty in those coming negotiations.
(Maybe they could sabotage their own negotiation and use that as a talking point against EU, but that's a risky gamble.)
Even Norway and Switzerland and Iceland had to compromise to gain access to this market.
It would be absolutely hilarious (from a political point of view) if the UK endsup in same position of having to pay into the EU and implement most of the laws without having any say in how its run.
None of the alternative 'deals' we often hear proposed are grounded in any kind of reality.
Take the Netherlands. From what I know, we pay more to the EU than we receive in subsidies and stuff, and hopefully trade is making up for that (who knows).
Take Spain. If I remember correctly, they're getting more from the EU than they pay, so for them it's a definite win.
So if the leaders from these countries go and negotiate, what's fair? Should we share all our wealth next month with the rest of Europe? Sounds unfair towards us. Should we keep it all and not invest in the EU? Also not a great idea.
Every penny we pay will make us more unhappy; yet every penny we don't share will make the other party more unhappy. I'm not sure there always are good outcomes. (This is probably one of the reasons why governments and politicians are fairly universally hated.)
A similar example could be constructed with the refugees issue. Some countries are being overrun; others only receive as many as those front-line countries send through. The front-line countries want to send as many as possible; we want to get as few as possible. Every extra refugee makes our representatives less happy about the deal and every refugee less makes them less happy about the deal.
I'd bet that especially for a country that thrives on trade that a definite win. Just think about the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam which serve as huge gateways for goods into the EU. They'd loose large amounts of trade if those goods could not be forwarded tax and border-control free to Germany and France.
I guess it's hard to estimate how much Germany gains from being in the EU. We're an extremely export oriented country and a substantial chunk of our exports go to the EU. Those certainly benefit - and those certainly benefit if the rest of the EU does better, so we could consider at least parts of the net payments as an investment. There are also other gains that are possible only because of the european integration: We're actually starting to share military assets with you: Germany provides the armored component of your 43rd mechanized brigade, the 11 Luchtmobielen Brigade is partially integrated into the Division Schnelle Kräfte, the german Seebataillon is partially being integrated into the duch Korps Mariniers and there's a LOI that the two navies want to share your most beautiful JSS, the Karel Doorman. Even from a purely financial perspective, not having to keep watch on the pesky Dutch seems to be paying of ;).
A lot of staff for trade negotiations has been cut, a lot of special rules and regulations from bilateral agreements were folded into common EU regulations. Joint research gets much easier, a lot of student travel/study agreements are governed by EU law.
Jokes aside: I think that a lot of the benefits that the EU offers go beyond the pure monetary part. Being able to travel freely, being able to work where you want without begging for a work visa. The Good Friday agreement in Ireland that basically upholds the fiction of two separate states on Irish soil while still having common cross border agreements is mainly possible because the relevant rules are done at a supernational level. I consider the money that Germany - and by extension me - pays a solid investment - despite all the numerous flaws that the EU currently has.
"That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament."
[1]: http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on...
That's just the kinda of thinking which hurts all parties (much like opposition to free trade in general). An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
There was never much reason to tie so much to free trade: NAFTA does well enough without onerous multinational regulation or free movement; why did the EU insist upon destroying so much of what was essentially British?
What Europe should do is let Britain go, and then allow the free trade which is better for everyone.
One of the contentious issue is passporting: Financial products (insurances, funds, ...) that are regulated in one EU country can be sold in all of them. A lot of them are registered in the UK - namely the City of London due to favorable conditions. Please explain: Why would the EU allow financial products that are regulated by a foreign jurisdiction? Is there any good reason for that? Does NAFTA include similar provisions?
Why would the EU prevent its citizens from purchasing the financial products they wish to purchase?
There's much to be decided still. It's premature in the extreme to make assumptions that there won't be a reasonable solution just because at this point things aren't yet clear.
Things like working time regulations, so that employers across the EU have to abide by the same technical regulations. Things like making employers only make their employees work ~40 hours per week, and yet the EU is blamed for the 'Working time directive'.
There are other things, like animal welfare with the transport of animals, where the EU gets blame for the regulation, but the reality is that there would have to be regulation for the amount of time animals spend time in transport. Because the regulation is headlined as 'EU' regulation the EU gets the blame. The point is that there would UK regulation if there wasn't a EU regulation.
Article 50 will likely never be triggered. The costs of triggering it are enormous because the UK would have to literally sit there copying EU laws and turning them into UK laws. There's zero incentive to diverge because if you want to sell into the EU you need to abide by the EU regs anyway.
The entire thing is fucking pointless.
There's hope at least. But we've pulled the trigger, saying the bullet might not hit home isn't going to help, if we miss then the people we were shooting at aren't going to want to be friends anymore.
Sorry if that's twisting an analogy too far.
We dun goofed.
That's why we have a parliament, to stop us making these bad decisions, only PM May has said she's not going to let parliament operate (which sounds like it should be unlawful, certainly as Treason) just in case they decide not to follow the marginal vote in to the void. Presumably all to save face as backing down would be awkward for her now.
And that's, my grandchildren, is how one politicians pride killed Europe and destabilised World economies for decades ...
But that only applies to products and services that will actually be sold in other EU member states. Not everything is exported to the EU, and a lot of things are never exported at all, and diverging from the EU rules in those other cases could offer all kinds of advantages depending on the circumstances.
With the kind of attitude this displays, I have a bad feeling about the "Bill of Rights" that the government has promised to create.
Isn't the point that the capitalist leaders don't want things like the WTD and the ECHR getting in the way of their "right" to exploit low paid workers?
You're right, we'll still have nearly all the regulations but ours won't have to get passed by the socialist countries of the EU and so will be much more Conservative friendly.
Selling in to Europe is the main sticking point as we'll need to abide by the regulations on production in order to make goods ready for the EU market if we get access.