The UK Government published a further Position Paper in their Brexit series today (21 August 2017).
This latest Brexit Position Paper covers continuity in availability of goods for the EU and UK but makes no explicit mention of the environmental considerations, such as eco-design and life-cycle.
It is disappointing to see that the process for continued eco-design has not be explicitly stated as for some specified goods, such as those electrical goods covered by The Ecodesign of Energy Related Products Directive 2009/125/EC.
It may be anticipated that these issues will be covered in a subsequent Position Paper but it does not bode well for continued environmental protection in a post-Brexit era.
Instead of specifics, the paper proposes four principles as follows:
Principle A:
Goods placed on the Single Market before exit should continue to circulate freely in the UK and the EU, without additional requirements or restrictions
Principle B:
Where businesses have undertaken compliance activities prior to exit, they should not be required to duplicate these activities
Principle C:
The agreement should facilitate the continued oversight of goods
Principle D:
Where the goods are supplied with services, there should be no restriction to the provision of these services that could undermine the agreement on goods.
We can only look forward to greater coverage of how these principles can be applied to post-Brexit environmental protection in subsequent Position Papers.
In the meantime, a copy of the Brexit Position Paper can be downloaded here