On the edge of the established deadlines, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) reached a trade agreement to implement Brexit. The arrangement brought good news for the Argentine claim: it is that the new rules of the game agreed with the regional bloc left out the British overseas territories, including the Malvinas Islands.
In this way, the archipelago will lose commercial, tax, and customs benefits in the exchange of the islanders with the countries that make up the community bloc, a measure that favors the position of the Argentine State in the territorial conflict that unleashed the war in the Atlantic South in 1982 in the middle of the military dictatorship.
The exclusion of the Malvinas Islands had been a formal proposal from the Argentine Foreign Ministry to the high representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, one of the spokesmen for the regional bloc’s negotiations with the United Kingdom. In that management, the government of Alberto Fernández reiterated its historic demand for sovereignty and again cited the recommendations of the United Nations Decolonization Committee that are not followed by London.
Although for Prime Minister Boris Johnson the agreed Brexit was seen as a “Christmas gift” for the British, the fact that overseas territories have not been included in the compromise – several of them are in dispute with other countries – is one of the concessions that the United Kingdom had to accept to reach the understanding, which will take effect from 1 January. The primary objective was to avoid a brutal rupture that would have damaged both parties.
In a message sent to the Malvinas islanders for the Christmas celebrations, Johnson pointed out that his administration will help them face “the change that is coming” with the abandonment of the European Community, and stated that the EU “was absolutely intransigent to the time to exclude the majority of overseas territories in this year’s trade negotiations. ” And he concluded: “You have not been forgotten or neglected.”
The text where the scope of the Brexit agreement is specified appears in part seven, in the “Final Provisions” section. There it is established that “the territories to which the Treaty of the European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Constitutive Treaty of the European Atomic Energy Community are applicable, and under the conditions established in said Treaties, and b: Territory of the United Kingdom ”.
After referring in point 3 to Gibraltar and other cases, it says in point 4: “This Agreement does not apply to overseas territories that have special relations with the United Kingdom: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Territory of the Indian Ocean, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and Turks and Caicos Islands ”.
From now on, the inhabitants of the Malvinas Islands will face a difficult economic situation, especially in the fishing sector, one of the most dynamic segments. The income from this activity represents 75% of their income and also affects Spain, since Spanish boats have a special license for squid fishing on the disputed maritime platform.
According to provisional estimates, the British inhabitants of the Falkland Islands could start paying tariffs of between 6% and 18%, for products that want to enter the European market. A few weeks ago, Labor lawmaker Derek Twigg remarked to the prime minister about the impact Brexit would have on the archipelago. “Fish exports to the European Union represent 40% of the Gross Domestic Product of the Falkland Islands and up to 60% of the income of the Islands, this poses a serious challenge. Will the Prime Minister deal with this matter when he meets later with the President of the European Commission? ”Asked the opposition MP.
In his end-of-year text to the islanders, Johnson trusted that Brexit will create new “long-term” business opportunities. “In the months and years ahead, the world may not identify you by your oysters, but it will certainly be by your squid Loligo,” predicted the British premier.
