EU and UK finally unwind Brexit’s costly food border checks
Select a version of the text written from a presumed ideological perspective. This is not the original text, but a hypothetical version — how someone with that viewpoint might have phrased it. Tapping the current version again will return to the original or select cleaned version.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have agreed to scrap sanitary and phytosanitary checks on food and animal-product trade, with implementation expected in the first quarter of 2028 after years of Brexit disruption that hit exporters, retailers and consumers.
The European Union and the United Kingdom have finally concluded a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement that will remove the post-Brexit checks on imports and exports of items such as sausages, cheese, leather goods and flowers. The deal is meant to ease the damage inflicted on British food exporters, whose trade with the EU has fallen by about a third since 2019, and to let smaller UK retailers once again buy limited batches of cheese and wine that became uneconomical after the checks were imposed in 2022.
Implementation of the SPS deal is now projected for the first quarter of 2028, after a six-month delay caused by a change in the UK prime minister that pushed back the second EU-UK summit to 20 November. The 200-page text, known as the “zero text,” has been settled and will be presented to EU ambassadors for discussion, alongside a joint statement to be issued by Andy Burnham and EU leaders.
"Exports of British food to the EU have collapsed by a third since Brexit, with eggs, chicken and potato products hardest hit," said the National Farmers’ Union.
The agreement also contains provisions on a youth experience scheme and an ongoing discussion about tuition fees for EU students, which the European Commission has agreed to negotiate separately for another six months.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had previously expected the deal to take effect in May of next year, but now advises industry that a six-month transition period for certain products, such as grains treated with fungicides not yet approved in the EU, will push full implementation to 2028. The delay reflects the UK’s need to align its food standards legislation with EU rules, a process that has reopened debate over whether the UK is acting as a “rule taker” rather than a true “rule maker.”
Under the new framework, retailers in Northern Ireland will no longer be required to label products as “not for the EU,” a practice that major supermarket chains had already criticised as an absurd and burdensome legacy of Brexit.