UK & EU industry calls for mutual recognition agreement to boost growth

Today, a broad coalition of business groups and membership bodies from the EU and UK including the British Chambers of Commerce, CBI, FSB and the UK’s sole national accreditation service UKAS, has called for a mutual recognition agreement on conformity assessments between the UK and EU to help boost economic growth.

Such an agreement could remove the need for British manufacturers to repeat costly testing processes to sell their products in both the UK and EU while increasing regulatory stability, increasing confidence for investment.

This was first proposed by the cross party UK Trade and Business Commission in its landmark 2023 report. 

Naomi Smith, Chief Executive of Best for Britain said,

“After seeing costs spike from new barriers to trade with our largest market, British manufacturing is facing yet another economic cyclone from Trump’s trade war which is aimed specifically at goods.

“At this extremely challenging time, removing artificial trade barriers with the EU can be a life ring to UK manufacturers, while independent economic analysis shows that even deeper alignment on goods and services would offset the impact of US tariffs on the UK entirely, boosting growth in our manufacturing heartlands particularly in the North and Midlands.”