EU businesses cut UK ties over Brexit

Bloomberg

British businesses aren’t the only ones unhappy with the state of Brexit negotiations. Companies in the rest of the European Union aren’t thrilled either.
Exactly two years after the referendum, nearly half of 800 executives surveyed across six EU countries by law firm Baker McKenzie said their businesses had reduced investment in the UK since the Brexit vote, according to a report published on Monday. While 75 percent said the EU should make concessions to the UK to secure a better trade deal for their businesses, more than a third also wanted to see Britain punished.
The report gives a rare insight into the views on Brexit from businesses outside the UK and comes after Airbus SE said last week it might pull its investment from Britain in the event of a no-deal scenario. While British companies have been creating contingency plans to try to avoid chaos post-Brexit, their EU counterparts have been less forthcoming.
That may be changing. EU leaders are poised to warn the UK after this week’s European Council summit that a breakdown in talks is a real possibility, people with knowl-
edge of the situation told Bloomberg last week.
The leaders are considering instructing their own governments to step up contingency measures to cope with such a scenario, the people said.
“The clock continues ticking on a Brexit deal and, without any clarity as to its final shape, businesses in both the EU and UK are inevitably having to take matters into their own hands,” said Ross Denton, a trade lawyer at Baker McKenzie. This could hurt “the UK economy in the long run if, as our survey suggests, EU27 businesses continue to rethink or pull the plug on their UK investments.”

PARTICIPATION LACKING
Survey respondents bemoaned a lack of participation in the negotiations, with 54 percent saying they hadn’t been properly consulted on Brexit. A similar number said their views hadn’t been well represented in the talks.
The surveyed executives are at businesses in France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland.
All work at companies with at least 250 million pounds ($332 million) in annual revenue, with 32 percent exceeding 1 billion pounds.
The idea of a free-trade agreement rather than a customs union between the EU and UK was seen as more important to business, the report showed, and nearly half of those surveyed had already seen disruption to their supply chains from the Brexit vote.
British lawmakers are due to vote on the UK’s customs bill in July.