- It is foreseen that the existing agreement will continue to apply to the UK during the transition period – the EU will ask third countries to accept this and treat the UK effectively as a member state which is part of the agreements.
- Up until the transition period and during the transition period the UK and SA will work to replace the EU-SA agreement once the transition period ends in December 2020. The UK is limited in how far it can discuss things until the transition period starts in March 2019, and can only have informal discussions, rather than negotiations. The EU-UK have agreed that during transition the UK will be able to have its own negotiations but that any new or amended FTAs couldn’t come in to force until after the end of the transition.
- The atmosphere is said to be quite good and both sides are keen to have an agreement in place. Our concern is that if the UK falls out of the EU in March 2019 without a transition period (still a possibility as all options are still on the table) there may not be a deal ready to go between the UK and SA.
- Things are quite advanced with SADC compared to some other agreements.
- Discussions are not at product level yet so poultrymeat/ meat hasn’t been discussed. The discussions on potential additional duties on poultrymeat and the AI ban are being kept separate from the discussions on future partnership.
- The focus is on replicating the existing deal, not renegotiating
