In the post shock of Brexit, we saw our markets drop in shock and then recover once we got our breath back. After all the negativity and doom and gloom prospects for the future of the British economy, one Industry body, namely the ITI – Information Technology Industry Council, based in Washington has stated that Britain could become “a more desirable option” after Brexit.
The reason for this is that the EU headquarters in Brussels has a plan to introduce a single digital market for online services with strict regulations that could affect huge tech firms, and could push them into the arms of a more lenient Britain. The EU is currently considering bringing in new laws for online platforms that would control how these huge tech firms trade in Europe.
The ITI has some huge members such as Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple, and has urged the EU to take a “non-discriminatory approach” and to carefully consider new laws. The EU however, are concerned that these huge (US) online tech firms are squeezing smaller European start ups out of the market…almost heading towards monopolizing the market between them, so Brussels is planning to regulate their trade restrictions to allow smaller companies to emerge.
Currently, companies such as Easyjet and Ryan Air have been enjoying huge success down to the EU regulation on free trade and the consistency and standardisation of rules across Europe, and concerns have been that companies could suffer by Britain pulling out of this single market.
On the upside, we now make our own rules…that doesn’t mean to say we can go all Sid Vicious, but we could still maintain trade agreements with Europe whist allowing opportunity for trade outside of EU laws.
Josh Kallmer, head of global policy at ITI said “There could be directions that the UK goes that are more positive for tech, not just for entrepreneurship in London, but also for the ability of global tech firms to do business here and engage with the rest of the world”.
Mr. Kallmer went on to say, “For some companies, access to the single market is the most important consideration – even though there are more significant regulatory restrictions. Whereas for other companies it could be their markets are more global, and [they want to do] their business from a jurisdiction that has fewer regulatory restrictions and fewer limitations on what they can sell to the rest of the world. So the UK becomes a more desirable option.” There are some concerns that were reflected from others in the tech industry that Britain could lose out if diplomats are not able to agree laws that will allow cross-Channel data transfers.
Although it’s going to be a bumpy ride, it doesn’t look so bleak after all if we can find the balance between maintaining current trade agreements with Europe and opening up other avenues of trade that are more restricted by EU law.
