TheRealMrSteve

Amazing- you just managed to out-Hesselden yourself!

Read any of the sources I gave you yet?

No, the EEA is a regulatory union- it is not the Single Market.

Goods do not cross the EU-Norway border as easily as they do between EU member states because only the Single Market does that.

There is an awful lot of lazy work out there, yes.

Read up on the history of the EU- cvce (dot) eu is a good resource.

You also need to know who Cockfield was & read his white paper from June 1985.

And lastly- acknowledge the differences between diplomatic PR text & treaty texts.

Nearly correct- you forgot Denmark and Finland!

They were all in the Nordic Passport Union from 1954.

It's not semantics- this is akin to failing to know the difference between 'the Customs union' & 'a customs union'.

You are either in the Single Market or you are not. The Single Market is the EUs internal market- the frictionless borders are for EU members only.

'Access' is not the same as 'in.

If you have a trade border with the EU, you aren't in the Single Market. Norway has enhanced trade with the EU compared to a FTA- but that's it.

The EEA agreement wasn't designed to replicate what the Single Market does- i.e. to remove all barriers to trade between nations.

You seem to be making the common error of conflating the EEA with the Single Market.

The Single Market removes *all* frontier barriers between countries, as set out in the TFEU- Art.26 on.

The EEA agreement does not enable the removal of those frontier barriers- by all means check it.

Irish unification is not relevant here.

Ireland values the CTA above Schengen, and it can't be forced to adopt Schengen against its wishes in any case, so the UK would have to be granted an opt-out to Schengen by the EU27.

If Norway was in the Single Market then its border with the EU would be exactly the same as the border between France and Spain, Denmark and Germany etc.

But it's not- there is a fiscal border, a physical border and a technical border.

Why?

Norwegian politicians reject UK's Norway-plus Brexit plan Norwegian MP says it is not in either country’s interest for UK to use trade agreement

No, Norway has always been quite cool on the UK rejoining EFTA/EEA- show me something recent saying they have changed position.

And why would we want to join EFTA? It would keep our Brexit trade border with the EU in place!

www.theguardian.com/politics/201...

No, those are the reasons it never joined the EU, and may never do so.

Norway, like Switzerland, is very protectionist...well, Switzerland is more protectionist as it never signed up to the EEA agreement so has a worse deal with the EU than Norway.

Great to hear! That's what we need to focus on, as Norway said no to us joining EFTA/EEA so it's not worth wasting any time on that dead end.

How do you address the issues of our Euro-opt-out still being written into the EU treaties to this day, and Ireland not being in Schengen, meaning the UK couldn't join Schengen?

The article is bollox. There is no option of joining the Single Market and saving rejoining the EU for some later date.

Only EU members are in the SM- they invented the thing in the first place.

Norway is in EFTA/EEA (so not in the SM) and as Norway said no quite a while back that option is out.

You do know there is no option of being in the SM & CU but not in the EU?

Two points:

1. Norway said no to the UK rejoining EFTA quite a while ago- that position has not changed.

2. Norway isn't in the Single Market- it's in EFTA/EEA= it still has a trade border with the EU & can't freely export agri/fish products into the EU- why would you want that for the UK?

There's no doubting his loyalty.

People who talk nonsense about future UK options absolutely have to be corrected.

There is a ridiculous amount of ignorance about how Europe works on the pro-European side (yes, my/our side)- it is just embarrassing.

Flexcit was delusional guff- a product of fantasy from a warped and vile mind.

Your plan is nonsense.

It is not possible to form a customs union with the EU & join EFTA/EEA.

Brits were so clueless about EFTA/EEA that the EFTA Secretariat had to explain the basics to ignorant Brits in their FAQs.

Norway also said no, so that option is unavailable.

So what does that leave?

And Norway said no to us rejoining EFTA in 2018 so that option is not available to us (fortunately).

I tried to explain things to you. Thank you anyway.

Go and read TFEU and EEA agreement.

TFEU removes all border restrictions between members.

EEA agreement does not remove border restrictions between EFTA/EEA & the EU.

Single Market = internal market = EU

Single Market ≠ EEA

So you've never learned the difference between 'a customs union' and 'the Customs Union'?

Turkey is in a partial customs union with the EU- industrial/processed agri goods.

Norway is in EFTA/EEA, whose rules state that it can't form a customs union with the EU.

The EEA is not the Single Market.

Norway knows it is not in the Single Market- it had to beg the EU not to put tariffs on its metal exports into the EU recently.

The Single Market removes *all* border restrictions between countries- the EEA agreement does not.

It's that simple.

Yes- Norway has said no in the recent past (2018) and there is nothing to suggest a change of heart, so anyone thinking we can do a Norway and rejoin EFTA/EEA is deluded.

And anyone thinking we can ask to rejoin EFTA/EEA temporarily is beyond deluded.

I hope that helps.

All you are doing here is showing that you don't know the difference between PR text and the legal texts.

The Single Market is set out in TFEU- go and read it. It only applies to EU members.

The EEA was a later Delors initiative- the EEA agreement does not remove trade borders with the EU.

Yup- they were all wrong, or just outright lied to con people into voting out.

I made a more accurate version of Barnier's staircase a while back...