First Minister Mark Drakeford has confirmed that when his government believes it’s in the interests of Welsh businesses, consumers and workers to align standards with the EU, it will do so.
He made the comments to journalists shortly after Boris Johnson said his government wanted the freedom to step away from EU trading rules. The UK PM also said he make such a point in post-Brexit trade talks starting next month.
However, Mr Drakeford said he planned to take a difference approach.
“We’ve said as a Welsh Government that the ‘red line’ approach to negotiation did not suit us well during the first phase of leaving the EU," he added.
"It seems to me that it doesn’t help to create the flexibility and compromise needed.
“I will read carefully what the Prime Minister has said, and then we’ll go on doing what we always have done: standing up for Wales and making it clear to the UK Government where essential Welsh interests are engaged in the negotiations, and never being afraid to speak up for them.”
Earlier on Monday, Mr Johnson said Britain would stand up for free trade and look for trading opportunities beyond Europe's borders. And the Tory Prime Minister said the UK would seek a Canada-style free trade agreement with the EU.
However, Brussels hit back at Mr Johnson's aggressive posturing by saying that any deal would be "ambitious" and "must include a deal on fisheries".
First Minister Mr Drakeford was asked whether the EU was being unreasonable in expecting the UK to abide by its rules and standards to get a free trade deal, when a similar demand had not been made to Canada in similar circumstances.
The Welsh Labour leader said "The position is entirely different between the EU and Canada, where there is no pre-existing relationship, and a country that has been part of the EU for 40 years, where we have full regulatory alignment today, and where uniquely in the history of trade negotiations, we will be creating new barriers for the UK rather than trying to dissolve them."
“Of course I understand the point that the Prime Minister is making. Whether it will serve the best interests of the UK economy is something to be tested in the negotiations over the next 12 months.
"I’ve said before that one of the very few iron laws of economics is that trade halves as distance doubles. So we have our closest, biggest, most important, most intertwined market on our doorstep.
“We have always argued that that is the most important market, and that as full and unfettered access as possible is preserved as part of any future trade deal, compared to new deals struck elsewhere and further away in the world. The Treasury’s own analysis tells us they will never amount to a substitute for the arrangements we currently have if the UK Government seeks to trade one against the other.”
Mr Drakeford said decisions would be taken on a "case-by-case basis" as to whether standards within the control of the Welsh Government were aligned with the EU: “Where we think it is in the interest of Welsh businesses, Welsh consumers, Welsh workers to align our regulations with European regulations, then that is what we would seek to do,” he said.
