This could be a game changer: Richard North outlines today
in his EU Referendum blog the way the EEA-EFTA option would offer Britain the
chance to stay in the Single Market, yet control EU immigration.
If Britain goes for a Leave vote on the 23rd,
this becomes one very important piece of information. A panicked Cameron may
realise that since he has been ordered by the voters to take the UK out of the
EU, he must after all embrace the Norway Option he has denigrated throughout the
campaign.
That, or face chaos.
So this little-known but enticing power for Britain to
control immigration – yet stay in the calm waters of the Single Market – may suddenly
start looking like a political lifeboat for a drowning prime minister.
What the EEA-EFTA option offers Britain – while EU
membership does not – is control of immigration through a quota system.
This is not speculation. There is precedent for it.
The details are in the link to eureferendum.com below, of how Article 112 of
the EEA Agreement and subsequent decisions has allowed Liechtenstein to control
the influx of EU migrants.
As North points out, the arrangement is effectively
permanent.
Some of us who have been writing on this issue have
pointed to Article 112 in the past, and explained the powers this gives any EEA
member state who decides to use it. Just to remind, here is the text:
Article 112
1.If serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties
of a sectorial
or regional nature
liable to persist
are arising, a Contracting
Party may unilaterally
take appropriate measures
under the conditions
and procedures laid down in Article 113.
2. Such safeguard measures shall be restricted with
regard to their scope and duration to what is strictly necessary in order to
remedy the situation. Priority shall be
given to such measures as will least disturb the functioning of this Agreement.
3. The safeguard measures shall apply with regard to
all Contracting Parties.
So, a contracting party ‘may unilaterally take
appropriate measures’ under procedures laid down in Article 113. Unfortunately
for the contracting parties who are members of the EU as well as members of the
EEA, the procedures say it is the European Commission who will take the action
for them – which is no kind of unilateral action at all.
Only Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway have the power
to act on their own initiative.
This power of initiating action of course covers more
powers than just the power to control immigration. It covers among other things
all Four Freedoms of the Single Market – the free movement of goods, capital,
services and people.
About these Four Freedoms: what is notable here,
besides Liechtenstein’s proven ability to control immigration while still being
in the Single Market, is that Iceland, despite being bound by the EEA Agreement
to guarantee freedom of movement of capital, unilaterally put capital controls
in place in 2008 following the banking crisis (last year the Reykjavik
government announced plans for loosening the controls -- its economy has
recovered spectacularly).
Iceland could stop the free movement of capital
because of Article 112 of the EEA Agreement and that key word, ‘unilaterally.’
Iceland has to report regularly to one of the joint
EU-EEA-EFTA committees about why it was persisting with capital controls, but
there was no doubt it has the right to suspend this ‘freedom.'
In 2015 I asked an official well-placed to know these
things (he did not want to be identified) the following question: if Britain
joined EEA-EFTA, could it make the argument that the pressures caused by
migration on the NHS, schools, housing, transport and the rest amounted to a
crisis so free movement of people had to be suspended for some months?
He replied: ‘It's true, you could do it.’
In short, the UK would have greater power to restrict
the four freedoms as an EEA-EFTA member than it has now as a member of the EU.
Yet remember this. No matter how much of an
improvement it would be for the UK to be in the EEA-EFTA than in the EU, it
should still only be used as a half-way house to full independence.
However, Britain's position for securing a final agreement
on control of borders would be stronger when the UK is negotiating from outside
the EU, yet is still an EEA-EFTA member.
In that position, Britain could use
Article 112 to suspend free movement of people during the talks, yet still be a
member of the Single Market.
That would be an economically and politically comfortable place to
stay until a final deal were struck for a fully independent UK.
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