Die ökonomische Bedeutung des Brexits

On January 1, 2021, Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) left the EU single market and customs union. Although the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the UK and EU ensures that no tariffs or quotas are to be imposed on traded goods, there are still numerous non-tariff barriers to trade. These added a significant layer of trade complexity that did not exist pre-Brexit and it was thus inevitable that there would be ramifications for the UK economy. Carefully judging this impact is a complicated task, however, as a counterfactual must be used: how would the UK economy have fared if it were still in the EU? This difficulty is exacerbated by two other highly significant events affecting the UK economy at the same time, namely the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. Disentangling Brexit from all this and deciding what is and is not a Brexit effect makes the evaluation thereof difficult. Nevertheless, there have been a number of studies published that have attempted such a task. UK-EU trade is widely judged to have taken a significant hit due to Brexit, with smaller firms producing a limited range of products being affected the most. The consensus view is that Brexit has also had a negative impact on UK investment levels and GDP, with the latter judged to be approximately 6 % lower than if the UK had stayed in the EU. In the long run, the UK economy may benefit from more skilled foreign labour due to the post-Brexit immigration rules. Nevertheless, any positive effects are likely to be outweighed by the non-tariff barriers in UK-EU trade, acting as a deterrent in exploiting comparative advantage and widely seen as being the main drag on UK productivity.