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Car maker Jaguar Land Rover has threatened to cut back on investment in the UK in case of a tough Brexit, a new warning from the business world that comes on the eve of a crucial meeting of the government to stop its stance.
Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May meets her cabinet Friday at Checkers, her country residence. Far from announcing itself as an amicable green, this meeting may be stormy between supporters of maintaining a close commercial relationship with the EU and supporters of an uncompromising divorce, under the watchful eye of Brussels which demands a clear position of the United Kingdom within nine months of Brexit
The "Brexiters" should defend the so-called solution of "maximum facilitation". It integrates the implementation of customs controls between the UK and the EU, but proposes to rely on technological solutions to maintain the fluidity of trade – and avoid the spectrum of traffic jams at borders and ports glimpsed with fright by the business community.
Supporters of a hard line against Brussels, Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, Brexit Minister David Davis and Environment Minister Michael Gove should defend this option.
Finance Ministers Philip Hammond and Industry, Greg Clark, face the "softer" solution of an unprecedented customs partnership: the United Kingdom would levy customs duties on behalf of the United States. This option would have the advantage of avoiding the introduction of formal customs between the United Kingdom and the mainland.
In between, Theresa May and her team at 10 Downing Street would like to propose a compromise solution, namely a customs partnership with technologies used to reduce controls.
'Russian Roulette'
Before this meeting where a weakened May May will attempt to muster her deeply divided majority, builder Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) put her weight in the balance on MM's side. Hammond and Clark.
After other European industrial highlights in recent weeks, such as BMW, Airbus or Siemens, JLR warned that it would be forced to reduce its investments in the United Kingdom if the Brexit was to lead to the reestablishment of customs controls with the United Kingdom. EU
"We and our suppliers are facing an unpredictable future if the Brexit negotiations do not maintain a tariff-free and unimpeded trade relationship with the EU and unrestricted access to the single market," he said. its managing director Ralf Speth, in a statement issued Wednesday evening
Consisting of the badociation of two prestigious British car brands, Jaguar Land Rover belongs to the Indian group Tata Motors.
According to Speth, "a bad Brexit deal would cost JLR more than 1.2 billion pounds of profit per year" (1.35 billion euros).
"Therefore, we should drastically review our spending plan," he added, adding that the group had spent 50 billion pounds in the UK in the last five years and was planning to spend 80 billion more in the next five. "All this would be threatened if we were to face a bad outcome" of the negotiations, he warned.
The builder employs about 40,000 people in the United Kingdom including 10,000 in Solihull, near Birmingham (center of the England), where he said at the beginning of June to consider a "significant investment" to make new models of sports cars.
The leader of the country's largest union, Unite, also got involved in the debate. "I say this to the Conservative Party: you do not have the right to play Russian roulette with our jobs," thundered its secretary general, Len McCluskey.
He demanded that the government give up its "red lines" in the negotiations with Brussels, including its promise to exit the single European market.
pn / oaa / nas
AIRBUS GROUP
TATA MOTORS
SIEMENS
BAYERISCHE MOTOREN WERKE AG
05/07/2018 11:52:53 –
London, July 5, 2018 (AFP) –
© 2018 AFP
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