The Brussels Report Podcast Episode 5 – with former British MEP Sajjad Karim
The Brussels Report Podcast
BrusselsReport.eu
0.0 • 0 Ratings
🗓️ 11 June 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sajjad Karim is a British politician and solicitor, who served as a Conservative Member of the European Parliament for the North West England between 2004 and 2019. He is a member of the executive board of European Movement UK and the Chair of Conservative European Forum Trade.
In this fifth episode of the Brussels Report Podcast, BrusselsReport.eu editor Pieter Cleppe discusses with him:
- how to soften trade restrictions and extra bureaucracy resulting from the brexit trade deal agreed between the EU and the UK, not only when it comes to the checks the UK has promised to impose on goods traded between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but also when it comes to financial services and data
- how should the long term relationship between Britain and the EU evolve: should Britain join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA)? Is it feasible for Britain to rejoin the EU one day? And for that to happen, how should the EU change?
- how should Western Europe deal with large-scale immigration and the challenges it brings, despite the benefits?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Brussels Report Podcast |
| 0:10.0 | Welcome to the fifth edition of the Brussels Report podcast. |
| 0:20.0 | My name is Peter Klepper. I'm the editor-in-chief of |
| 0:24.9 | BrusselsReport.E.U. And I'm more than happy to have with me here in real life, |
| 0:30.8 | and not just a webinar, because COVID is slowly coming to an endless hope that. |
| 0:35.9 | Sajat Karim, who is a British politician a solicitor and |
| 0:41.6 | who has been for a long time a member of the European Parliament for 15 years so |
| 0:48.5 | welcome Peter it's good to be here and it's good to be in Brussels as well. Great. So I'd like to |
| 0:57.4 | discuss with you, of course, the obvious most important issue in British European relation and |
| 1:05.0 | that is Brexit. I've been working on this topic for a very long time myself and as they say in the United Kingdom |
| 1:13.6 | we are where we are so there's been a referendum this was implemented a Brexit deal was |
| 1:22.6 | concluded first the divorce agreement then at the end of last year, the TCA, the free trade deal between Britain and the EU. |
| 1:33.3 | Despite all that, a lot of stuff still has to be sorted out. |
| 1:38.3 | Only today, David Frost, the chief negotiator of the UK government, wrote in the FD, stressing the |
| 1:48.3 | position of the UK when it comes to the Irish sea border. |
| 1:54.6 | And so the idea that there have to be checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland to avoid some kind of a backdoor into the EU. |
| 2:06.4 | Now, what's your position here specifically on the Irish sea border, but maybe also broadly, |
| 2:13.7 | given that we have this trade deal agreement here, in your view, what should be the |
| 2:19.4 | priority to try to soften it, to mend it, to improve it in the context of what's possible, |
| 2:25.5 | of course? |
| 2:26.5 | Well, I think really we don't have much choice. |
| 2:31.2 | We've got to be absolutely practical on both sides, on the British side and the EU side, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BrusselsReport.eu, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BrusselsReport.eu and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.