UK can’t cherry-pick EU rules, says Sweden

Sweden’s finance minister, Magdalena Andersson, has made it clear that Britain's trade with the country will be affected by last Thursday's Brexit vote.

Published: 27 June 2016 16:24 CEST

UK can't cherry-pick EU rules, says Sweden

Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson following the meeting on Monday. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

Speaking after discussions with Swedish businesses on Monday held to dissect the consequences of Brexit, Andersson noted that it “isn't as if you can just cherry-pick and simply follow the rules you want, then have full access to the single market”.

She also dismissed questions from journalists over a possible bilateral trade agreement with London, emphasizing that there is a reason for having trade agreements at EU level.

Andersson did however say that the Swedish firms she met were keen to avoid unnecessarily long periods of uncertainty.

“They emphasized that it is important to have good chances to trade with the UK going forward, and that there is not an unnecessarily long period of uncertainty,” she said.

Several Swedish companies with operations in the UK were invited to discussions, but the business whose shares have so far fallen furthest on the Stockholm Stock Exchange since Thursday's vote was not summoned.

Kitchen fitters Nobia has 2,500 employees in Britain, and makes 45 percent of its sales there. By noon on Monday its shares had plummeted over 18 percent.

“Right now 2.5 billion kronor ($293 million) has disappeared from the company, and that’s a lot,” Nobia CFO Mikael Norman told news agency TT.

“We were already disappointed just before the weekend when it became clear that the majority of Brits voted to leave the EU. We think the reaction, a drop of 18 percent, is excessive, and believe in the long run that it will stabilize.”

Nobia has several factories in the UK and buys products from many other EU countries.

“With the pound now weakened it becomes more expensive for us to buy products from other EU countries, so we are affected a lot right at the moment. But I don’t think there is any reason to panic. There will be uncertainty in the market before it stabilizes. We have a buffer,” the CFO insisted.

Telecoms giant Ericsson is one of the companies that took part in the ministerial meeting. It did not want to go into detail on how Brexit could affect them, but expressed regret over the outcome of last Thursday's vote.

“Our commitment and priority has always been to support our customers and businesses in the UK regardless of the result of the referendum. As Sweden is a part of the EU we regret the UK’s decision to leave,” press officer Karin Ronander wrote in a statement.

Construction giant Skanska was also invited, but its press manager did not anticipate Brexit having a significant impact on their operations.

“It isn’t as if we need to take mass action. There won’t be any immediate impact on us as a company, and moreover, exactly what is going to happen is very unclear,” Edvard Lind said.

Faced with Russia’s war in Ukraine, the potential return of Donald Trump as US president and competition from China, the new commission will need to steward the EU at a time of global uncertainty.

To confront the challenges, von der Leyen handed powerful economic portfolios to France, Spain and Italy — with a hard-right candidate from Rome taking a top role in a commission seen shifting broadly rightward.

“It’s about strengthening our tech sovereignty, our security and our democracy,” the commission chief said as she announced the team at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

France’s outgoing foreign minister Stephane Sejourne was handed an executive vice president role overseeing industrial strategy, after von der Leyen ousted Paris’s first nominee.

Spain’s Teresa Ribera, a socialist climate campaigner, was also made an executive vice president, tasked with overseeing competition and the bloc’s transition toward carbon neutrality.

As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on through a third year, security and defence assumed a new prominence.

Former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius landed a new defence role overseeing the EU’s push to rearm, making him one of several hawkish Russia critics in eastern Europe to receive a prominent position.

Those also include Estonia’s ex-premier Kaja Kallas, already chosen by EU leaders as the bloc’s foreign policy chief.

And Finland, another country neighbouring Russia, saw its pick Henna Virkkunen given a weighty umbrella role including security and tech.

As part of the bloc’s careful balancing act, the German head of the EU executive had to choose the lineup for her second term from nominees put forward by the other 26 member states.

That has meant treading a political tightrope between the demands of competing national leaders — and putting some noses out of joint.

The highest-profile casualty was France’s first-choice candidate Thierry Breton, who quit suddenly as internal market commissioner on Monday accusing von der Leyen of pushing Paris to ditch him.

Von der Leyen fell short in her efforts at gender balance, ending up with 40 percent women after pressuring member states for female nominees.

But women obtained the lion’s share of executive VP roles, with four of six posts.

Controversial Italian pick

The choice of who gets which job is an indication of where Brussels wants to steer the European Union — and the weight commanded by member states and political groupings after EU Parliament elections in June.

Cementing its status as parliament’s biggest group, Von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s Party commands 15 of 27 commission posts — to the chagrin of left-wing lawmakers like France’s Manon Aubry who warned of a lurch “far to the right” in terms of policies too.

Among the powerful vice presidents is Italy’s Raffaele Fitto, handed a cohesion brief in a nod to gains made by far-right parties in the June elections.

Giving a top role to a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party has raised hackles among centrist and leftist groups — while Meloni said it “confirms the newfound central role of our nation in the EU”.

After Green party losses at the June ballot, whether climate would remain high on the agenda and which commissioners would steer green policy was a subject of scrutiny.

As well as Ribera’s overarching role, the centre-right Dutchman Wopke Hoekstra will carry on in a position handling climate and the push to make the EU carbon neutral.

Among other eye-catching choices, Croatia’s Dubravka Suica obtained a new role overseeing the Mediterranean region, and the enlargement gig went to Slovenia’s Marta Kos — yet to be confirmed as her country’s candidate.

Other important figures going forward look set to be Slovakia’s Maros Sefcovic, handling trade, and Poland’s Piotr Serafin, who will steer negotiations over the bloc’s next budget.

All would-be commissioners still need to win approval from the European Parliament, with hearings to start in coming weeks.

Lawmakers could flex their muscles by rejecting some candidates — or at least dragging them over the coals, as expected with Italy’s Fitto.

Chief among those suspected for the chopping block are Hungary’s Oliver Varhelyi, nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s man in Brussels these past five years, who received a diminished portfolio covering health and animal welfare.

The stated target is to have a new commission in place by November 1st, but diplomats say that looks ambitious, with December 1 more likely.