Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-14-Speech-3-160-000"
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"en.20120314.22.3-160-000"2
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"Mr President, 40 years ago, the United Kingdom voted to join a common market. I am not sure that we understood then and I am not sure even now, after 40 years, that we fully appreciate the distinction between a free market and a customs union.
A free trade area means that goods and services and capital circulate without restrictions. It is the kind of deal that Switzerland enjoys with the European Union and one cannot help noticing that the Swiss seem to be doing pretty well with it. In a customs union, of course, you are dragged into a common commercial policy and a common external tariff.
It has been particularly disastrous to the United Kingdom, the country which did the highest percentage of its trade, without the EU, to non-European markets. We are linked into a market of similar industrialised economies, having cut ourselves off from our natural hinterland of producers. I never tire of pointing out to this House that we have confined ourselves in a cramped and declining customs union, while standing aside from the bits of the world where the growth still is, not least the wider community of English-speaking democracies. Truly our fathers made a wretched decision."@en1
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