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[co-author: Iris Karaman]

On Christmas Eve, the United Kingdom and European Union finally agreed a trade deal the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) which will define the post-Brexit trading relationship between the European Union and United Kingdom from 1 January 2021. We have set out key elements of the framework that businesses trading between the European Union and United Kingdom need to be aware of.

The TCA will be directly relevant to all businesses that export and import goods across the UK-EU border. Although EU and UK businesses will notice more burdens and restrictions than they have been accustomed to, the TCA goes some way to preserving the flow of trade in goods; perhaps most significantly, trade between the United Kingdom and European Union will be duty free and quota free provided the goods originate in the United Kingdom or European Union.

The key elements of the agreement are:

1. Tariffs

Goods "originating" in the EU-UK free trade area will not be subject to import tariffs or other customs duties or quotas.

Goods that fail to satisfy the relevant preferential origin rules will be subject to normal World Trade Organization (WTO) import tariffs (i.e., the EU Common Customs Tariff or the Global UK Tariff).

Movements of goods (of whatever origin) solely for the purpose of repair will not be subject to customs duties.

2. Rules of origin

To benefit from the no-tariffs provision, a product must originate in the United Kingdom or European Union. This means that EU materials used in UK production, and UK materials used in EU production, will help satisfy the preferential origin rules under the TCA.

The TCA provides for a number of ways in which a product's origins can be determined, revolving around where a certain proportion of a product's components are made and where it is assembled. Goods wholly obtained in the European Union and/or United Kingdom will benefit from tariff-free trade. Goods produced using components originating from outside the EU and/or UK will need to meet product-specific origin requirements, which are allocated by tariff custom code in the TCA.

Certain products, such as electric cars, will benefit from a phase-in period for rules of origin requirements to apply.

Proof of origin can be provided through self-declarations of origin, so there is no need to obtain origin certificates from customs authorities.

3. Customs formalities

Although import tariffs will not apply in most cases, customs formalities will apply and declarations will be required for imports and exports.

The TCA provides for mutual recognition of Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) status, which means certain simplified procedures will be available for AEOs.

Businesses may use a third party, such as freight forwarders or customs agents, to act as their representatives.

The TCA includes a protocol for UK-EU cooperation in relation to combatting value added tax, customs, and excise fraud.

4. Product standards regulation

There is no cross-recognition of conformity standards. This means that, with a few exceptions, products will have to undergo two separate conformity assessment processes so that they can be placed on both the EU and UK markets.

However, the TCA will allow self-declaration of conformity with EU product rules for low-risk products.

5. Trade in services

The TCA largely reproduces WTO rules, and the provisions in relation to services are similar to those seen in other recent EU free trade agreements, and falls short of the freedoms of movement and establishment and provision of services that UK businesses previously enjoyed within the European Union.

The TCA sets out rules to facilitate cross-border provision of services in certain fields, such as digital services and public procurement. UK service providers operating in the European Union will need to verify if their service is subject to one of the exceptions.

6. Digital trade

The TCA includes provisions to facilitate cross-border digital trade, for example it includes a ban on data localization. The United Kingdom and the European Union agree not to discriminate against electronic signatures or electronic documents on the basis that they are in digital form. The United Kingdom and the European Union will cooperate on digital trade issues in future, including emerging technologies.

The United Kingdom recognizes EU data protection standards as equivalent for data transfers from the United Kingdom to the European Union but the European Union has not yet issued an adequacy decision in respect of data transfers from the European Union to the United Kingdom. In order to provide time to reach an adequacy decision, the United Kingdom and European Union have separately agreed a further bridge period of up to six months to allow for the completion of a UK adequacy decision.

7. Movement of people

Visa-free entry from the United Kingdom to European Union (and vice versa) for tourism and certain work purposes is to be allowed for up to 90 days in a 180-day period, although there are restrictions on the scope of this (e.g., those planning any work other than routine business meetings and conferences need an appropriate visa).

UK and EU citizens who established EU free movement rights before 31 December 2020 retain them under the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement concluded in November 2019, if they have registered their settled status under the schemes set up by the United Kingdom or European Union by 30 June 2021.

8. Mutual recognition of qualifications

There is no mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

The TCA provides for the possibility of such recognition in the future on a profession-by-profession basis through the Partnership Council, but there is no guarantee of any such agreements. Professionals will therefore need to meet separately the requirements of each EU Member State in which they wish to provide services.

9. Northern Ireland

While the TCA is an agreement between the United Kingdom and European Union, the TCA provisions on trade in goods do not cover trade between the European Union and Northern Ireland, which is governed by the Northern Ireland Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement.

The protocol on Northern Ireland effectively creates a customs and regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The TCA will not govern trade in goods between the European Union and Northern Ireland and goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain will count as imports.

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The UK-EU trade deal: What you need to know - JD Supra

LONDON (Reuters) - Many Scottish fishermen have halted exports to European Union markets after post-Brexit bureaucracy shattered the system that used to put fresh langoustines and scallops in French shops just over a day after they were harvested.

FILE PHOTO: View of fishing boats and a net in the coastal town of Macduff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Britain October 18, 2020. REUTERS/Alexander Smith

Fishing exporters told Reuters their businesses could become unviable after the introduction of health certificates, customs declarations and other paperwork added days to their delivery times and hundreds of pounds to the cost of each load.

Business owners said they had tried to send small deliveries to France and Spain to test the new systems this week but it was taking five hours to secure a health certificate in Scotland, a document which is required to apply for other customs paperwork.

In the first working week after Brexit, one-day deliveries were taking three or more days - if they got through at all.

Owners could not say for sure where their valuable cargo was. A trade group told boats to stop fishing exported stocks.

Our customers are pulling out, Santiago Buesa of SB Fish told Reuters. We are fresh product and the customers expect to have it fresh, so theyre not buying. Its a catastrophe.

On Thursday evening, the Scottish fishing industrys biggest logistics provider DFDS Scotland told customers it had taken the extraordinary step of halting until Monday export groupage, when multiple product lines are carried, to try to fix IT issues, paperwork errors and the backlog.

Scotland harvests vast quantities of langoustines, scallops, oysters, lobsters and mussels from sea fisheries along its bracing Atlantic coast which are rushed by truck to grace the tables of European diners in Paris, Brussels and Madrid.

But Britains departure from the EUs orbit introduced reams of paperwork and costs that must be completed to move goods across the new customs border, the biggest change to its trade since the launch of the Single Market in 1993.

Those trading in food and livestock face the toughest requirements, hitting the express delivery of freshly caught fish that used to move overnight from Scotland, via England, into France, before going on to other European markets in days.

David Noble, whose Aegirfish buys from Scottish fleets to export to Europe, said he would have to pay between 500 to 600 pounds ($815) per day for paperwork, wiping out most profit.

His concern is that this marks more than just teething problems, and says he cannot pass on the higher costs of doing business. Im questioning whether to carry on, he said.

If our fish is too expensive our customers will buy elsewhere.

In the single market, European food could be processed and packed in Britain then returned to the EU for sale. But Britains pursuit of a more distant relationship means its trade deal does not cover all interactions between the two sides.

Gaps have already appeared on French and Irish shop shelves.

Brexit has strained the ties that bind the United Kingdom together: while England and Wales voted to leave the EU in 2016, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted remain.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has used Brexit as part of her argument that Scotland should seek independence.

She said on Friday that exporters were paying a high price, a particular worry for Scotlands world class seafood sector.

Fishermen across Britain have accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of betrayal after he previously vowed to take back control of British waters. With little new control and little access to customer markets, many are in despair.

Fishing trade bodies said mistakes in filling out paperwork meant entire consignments were being checked. A French fishmongers union said numerous seafood trucks had been held up at the customs point in Boulogne for several hours, and even up to a day, due to faulty paperwork.

While that should improve with time, and IT issues should be resolved, Seafood Scotland warned they could see the destruction of a centuries-old market if it does not.

Fergus Ewing, Scottish secretary for the rural economy, said it was better for problems to be identified and resolved in Scotland than hundreds of miles away.

SB Fishs Buesa, angered at suggestions that traders were not prepared, said all his paperwork was correct and demanded to know why business leaders were not making more of a fuss.

He owns the business with his father, has been exporting for 28 years and employs around 50 people. Im in the trenches here, he said. Its gridlock.

($1 = 0.7363 pounds)

Additional reporting by Richard Lough in Paris; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Catherine Evans

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Exclusive: 'It's a catastrophe': Scottish fishermen halt exports due to Brexit red tape - Reuters

Test studies of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate Sputnik V are being carried out in Russia.

Sefa Karacan | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is "open" to the idea of producing Russia's coronavirus vaccine in the European Union, according to a spokesperson for her office.

Germany has so far administered the highest number of inoculations among the 27 European nations since the rollout began in late December. However, there are broad discrepancies within the bloc, where, for instance, the Netherlands only started vaccinating on Wednesday.

The EU has been criticized for a slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in comparison with other parts of the world, with the U.S., China and Israel among those leading the way in terms of the number doses administered.

Merkel discussed the response to the Covid-19 pandemic with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. During the phone call, she said that she "is open to the idea of bilateral cooperation for the purpose of tapping European production capacities (for the Russian vaccine)," UlrikeDemmer, deputy spokesperson for the German government said on Wednesday, according to Politico.

A spokesperson for the German government based in Brussels confirmed the same statement to CNBC.

Germany has made it clear that this would only happen if the European Medicines Agency (EMA) were to give its approval to the Sputnik V vaccine.

Europe's regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine last month and the Moderna's jab on Wednesday. However, the EMA has not yet received a formal request to assess the Russian Covid vaccine for administration across the EU.

Russia's Gamaleya Institute, the developers of the Sputnik V vaccine, said Tuesday that more than 1 million people have received the jab, the Financial Times reported.

Earlier this week, Germany announced a further tightening in social restrictions, with school closures in place until January 31.

Germany's Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Thursday there will be a vaccine for "everyone" this year. "In 2021, we will have 50 million vaccine doses from Moderna and 90 million from BioNTech secured. That alone is enough to offer virtually everyone a vaccination," Spahn told German television channel ZDF.

Germany has about 83 million citizens.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Spahn also said "if all goes well" there will be a new Pfizer-BioNTech factory in February to expand the number of available vaccines in Europe. BioNTech is a biotechnology company based in Mainz, a city situated on the Rhine river in west-central Germany.

See more here:
Germany's Merkel 'open' to producing Russian Covid vaccine in the EU - CNBC

A pro-Brexit lobby group transferred its website registration address to the European Union to avoid losing its .eutop-level domain, Irish media reported on Thursday.

Leave.eu is a website funded byUKIP funder Arron Banks that campaigned for Brexit. It is not affiliated with the official Vote Leave Brexit campaignbut was an influential lobby group in the lead up to the 2016 Brexit referendum and subsequent negotiations.

The .eucountry code top-level domain is reserved for people and entities residing in the EU. As the UK has now left the bloc, theEuropean registry for the .eu domain, EURid, suspended all British-based .eu websites.

In a bid to avoid losing its domain name, which would affect its brand and its search rankings, the parent organization, Better for the Country, changed its address to a town in Ireland, according to the Irish Times and Euractiv.

Euractiv reported that Leave.eu was one of 80,000 British .eu websites thatEURid wrote to ahead of the Brexit cut-off date.

British operators of .eu domains have until March 31 to change their address to the EU or prove that they are EU citizens, or they will lose access entirely.

Banks ran the Leave.eu group with Andy Wigmore, who confirmed to French news agency AFP that they had shifted their registered office toWaterford, a town onIreland's southeast coast.

Wigmore defended the move in comments to British newspaper The Independent, saying: "Yes we did it and why not? Anyone can do it and thousands of companies have."

He told the paper that the move would not include the transfer of any staff or economic activity out of the UK to the EU.

The news bought mockery on social mediaand accusations of hypocrisy.

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Pro-Brexit lobby group Leave.eu joins the EU - DW (English)

BRUSSELS: The European Union says it will redouble its efforts to save the Iran nuclear agreement despite what it calls Tehran's "important breach" of commitments made in the 2015 deal by starting to enrich uranium to new levels. EU spokesman Peter Stano said that Iran's actions "will have serious implications when it comes to nuclear nonproliferation."

Stano said it was in everyone's interest to rescue the deal and said the 27-nation bloc "will strengthen" its attempts to make sure all adhere to the commitments made in the landmark deal.

Iran began enriching uranium Monday to levels unseen since its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The decision appeared aimed at increasing Tehran's leverage in the waning days in office for US President Donald Trump, whose unilateral withdrawal from the atomic accord in 2018 began a series of escalating incidents.

Increasing enrichment at its underground Fordo facility puts Tehran a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the action was "fully reversible" if other partners in the deal fully complied too, without elaborating.

Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plans to increase enrichment to 20% last week.

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European Union says it will redouble efforts to save Iran nuclear deal after rule breach - Economic Times