Brexit has changed Britain’s relationship with the European Union, and created a whole range of complications and opportunities for those looking to trade with the bloc.
If you’re looking to navigate these complexities, then the input of an expert consultant firm can be extremely valuable.
But if you’re not going to go that far, there are a few salient challenges worth taking stock of as you seek to trade in, and with, the EU.
Laws, taxation and compliance
Trading across national boundaries means thinking about how you’re going to stay on the right side of a slightly (and often radically) different set of legal obligations. The sales you make in the new country might be taxed at a different rate, and those taxes might need to be reported in a different way.
The profits you make might face different rates of corporation tax, depending on where you’re reporting those profits. You might also face a different set of regulations when it comes to the products you sell. What’s legal in one country might be illegal in another.
There are no shortcuts, here: you’ll want to familiarise yourself with the regulations and tax obligations, and ensure that you stay on the right side of them.
Longstanding problems in Europe
One of the perceived drawbacks of the European Union was the mass of bureaucracy emanating from Brussels. Individual taxpayers and business in member states have little say in how these decisions are arrived at, or, indeed, what they are.
There are ongoing political disputes across the continent, as a result of migration, fiscal policy, and differing philosophies on how society should be constituted. However, the fact that these disparate nations are regulated central by a supranational, predictable organisation means that many of these drawbacks can be overcome.
What about the opportunities?
What is it that makes Europe worth trading with, now that Brexit is finished with?
For one thing, trading overseas will make the fortunes of your business more resilient in the face of economic shocks in the UK. If you’re trading in two countries and one of them experiences a downturn, then you’ll still have the other to trade with. Multinational businesses thereby spread their risk.
The EU is relatively homogenous, and free from corruption. According to Transparency International, the EU ranks at sixty-six (out of a hundred). While the UK has suffered a slump in recent years, it’s still slightly higher, at seventy-three. What’s interesting is that many Scandinavian countries sit much higher than this – and so, if you want to trade with a country that’s corruption-free, this is a good place to do it.
Finally, we should mention the data protection laws that the EU has developed. The bloc is a world leader when it comes to this kind of legislation, which gives interconnected businesses here an inherent advantage.
