Trade benefits of EU are 'imaginary': Report finds exports to Europe have grown at slower rate than trade with countries outside over the past 40 years

Exports to Europe grown at slower rate than with other leading countries

Trade with countries outside EU increased over same period, report says

Fears about loss of jobs if Britain left EU, are false Civitas report suggests



The trade advantages of being in the European Union single market are ‘imaginary’ and have not helped British exports, according to a new report.

It claims the UK’s exports to Europe have grown at a slower rate than our trade with other leading countries outside the EU bloc, over the past four decades.

And the proportion of EU trade within Britain’s total exports of goods and services abroad, is no higher than when Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973, at just over 60pc.

UK¿s exports to Europe have grown at a slower rate than our trade with other leading countries outside the EU bloc, over the past four decades

Meanwhile, it points out that Britain’s trade with countries outside the EU – such Iceland, Norway and Switzerland – has increased enormously over the same period.

The report from the centre-right think tank Civitas, using trade figures from the OECD, suggests fears about losing and jobs and growth if Britain leaves the European Union may be misplaced.

When campaigning ahead of the last referendum on membership in 1975, then Prime Minister Harold Wilson told the public that it was ‘the world’s most powerful trading bloc’.

But the author Burrage, a former academic at the London School of Economics and now director of an Asian market research firm, said new figures made clear the single market had ‘changed nothing’.

In first study of its kind, he showed exports of UK goods to the 14 nations who were members before 2004 have not increased as a proportion of trade with all OECD nations.

European Union countries accounted for 63.9pc of exports when Britain joined the common market in 1973. Despite highs of up to 70pc in the late 1980s and in 2004, it slowly fell to 61.9pc by 2012.

The authors say UK goods exported to non-EU Iceland, Norway and Switzerland more than doubled over this period from 5.1pc to 10.7pc. Services exported to them trebled from 6.1pc to 20.2pc, A list of countries which were the fastest growing exports to the initial members of the EU over the past 20 years found rapidly-growing Vietnam in first place, followed by Qatar and China.

The report authors say UK goods exported to non-EU Iceland, Norway and Switzerland more than doubled over this period from 5.1pc to 10.7pc (library image)

Britain was in 28th place, just below Egypt. The value of UK exports to European countries is way behind those from Germany, France and even the United States which was behind Britain until 2011.

Mr Burrage rules out the argument that UK producers have not adapted to the opportunities offered by the single market.

He found the fastest growing markets for UK good and services are mostly outside the EU, with Qatar, China, Turkey and Korea. They are all ahead of the initial 14 EU countries.

The report from the centre-right think tank Civitas suggests fears about losing and jobs if Britain leaves the European Union may be misplaced (library image)

‘Over the 40 years of EU membership, for all the costs and obligations incurred, for all the treaties negotiated, and for all the immense amounts of time and anguish spent arguing about various aspects of the EU project, the proportion of UK exports going to the UK’s future EU partners has changed hardly at all’, he said.

‘While the share of UK exports to fellow EU members has been virtually stable, the share going to non-members in Europe has risen steadily, leading one to suspect that both insider advantages and outsider disadvantages are imaginary.’



The study also cast doubt on pro-European claims that Britain had more clout to negotiate trade agreements as part of the EU.



There were 25 EU free-trade agreements in force in 2012 while non-EU Switzerland had independently negotiated 26, the report said.

In a ‘balance of competences’ review ordered by the government, and published in February, most businesses said they felt EU rules were ‘beneficial to the national interest’.



However they said there were concerns about how it exercises its power and the costs of membership.