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Shoppers are seen holding bags at Bicester Village, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Bicester, Britain, June 18, 2020.
LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the protagonist inexplicably shoots an albatross that had hitherto acted as his ship’s lucky charm. In 2021 a similar fate is set to befall one of the United Kingdom’s golden geese: duty-free perks for foreign tourists. The government’s decision to upend a benefit that might have provided a handy post-pandemic boost could become a symbol of its messy break from the European Union.
New relations between Britain and Brussels post trade deal
Business
December 26, 2020
Brussels: The future relationship deal struck between the UK and the EU will bring far-reaching changes, as both sides are forced to adapt to the end of Britain’s 30-year membership of the European single market.
The trade agreement between London and Brussels will offer UK and EU companies’ preferential access to each other’s markets, compared with basic World Trade Organization rules ensuring imported goods will be free of tariffs and quotas.
But economic relations between the UK and the EU from January 1, when the deal is due to take effect, will be on more restricted terms than they are now.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a news conference in Downing Street on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, in London, Britain December 24, 2020. Paul Grover/Pool via REUTERS
LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Boris Johnson’s “oven-ready” Brexit is almost cooked in time for Christmas. A year after the British prime minister won a landslide by promising to complete the country’s departure from the European Union – and just seven days before the end of the transition period – the two sides finalised a trade deal. Though the compromise avoids painful tariffs and a dangerous rupture in relations, it’s a much harder form of Brexit than Johnson and others envisaged during the referendum of 2016. The costs are about to become clear.