Summary
What does EU membership mean for UK business and how might that change if Britain votes to leave? Business leaders join Evan Davis to discuss how trade agreements and red tape can both help and hinder corporate success. What can Switzerland teach us about trading with Europe and beyond, despite being outside the EU?
Guests:
Jan Atteslander, EconomieSuisse
Julia Gash, CEO, Bidbi
Christopher Nieper, Managing Director, David Nieper
Jayne-Anne Gadhia, CEO, Virgin Money
Jon Moynihan, Chairman, Ipex Capital
Producer: Sally Abrahams.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this programme. |
| 0:02.1 | In this edition, we're discussing what EU membership means for business in the UK |
| 0:05.8 | and how Brexit, a vote to leave, might change the way companies trade in goods and services. |
| 0:13.3 | Hello and welcome to the programme. |
| 0:15.5 | Not long now, until Britain decides on whether to leave the EU. |
| 0:19.6 | And apart from all the other stuff, the effects of |
| 0:22.3 | Brexit on business have played more than a bit part in the arguments over membership. The |
| 0:27.3 | surveys indicate majority business opinion in favour of staying in, but by no means unanimous. |
| 0:33.7 | And the debate on business has often just been an echo, really, of the arguments made more generally. |
| 0:38.6 | So we thought we'd gather an enlarged panel today, five guests, to talk about the practical details, |
| 0:46.0 | about what the EU actually means for business. |
| 0:49.3 | This is meant to be an enlightenment rather than an argument. |
| 0:53.4 | I want to introduce one of my guests, straightaway, special guests actually, an outsider to than an argument. I want to introduce one of my guests straightaway, special guests actually, |
| 0:56.9 | an outsider to the UK debate, Jan Attersland, |
| 0:59.7 | and he's head of international relations at Economy Suisse, |
| 1:03.0 | which is the Swiss Business Federation, I suppose we'd say you're like a Swiss CBI, Yarn. |
| 1:08.7 | Now, the Swiss are not in the EU, which is why we're very interested in the |
| 1:12.6 | Swiss model as a potential model for Britain if we left. Let's just be clear about what the |
| 1:18.5 | Swiss model is. So the Swiss have basically not signed up to the single market en masse. You've |
| 1:25.8 | not signed up to the EU, but you have signed just a whole lot of |
| 1:30.5 | different specific market agreements that give you access to most of the markets in the EU. |
| 1:36.5 | Absolutely. We have in total about 120 agreements. About 20 of them are really relevant to business. |
... |
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