Political Declaration
The Political Declaration (27 pages) was not legally-binding. It provided directional guidance to the long and complex negotiations that would begin when the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. It was a vague and aspirational document, which meant that it gave little certainty about the UK’s future arrangements with the EU. This was very different to the certainty of the transition period.
The scope of the future relationship was immense, covering topics such as mobility of citizens, goods, services, capital and investment, digital commerce, data exchange, law enforcement, fish, cyber-security, security (including health), defence, foreign policy, law enforcement, transport, energy, UK participation in some EU regulatory bodies, UK participation in some EU programmes (e.g. in science and education). For example, the rights of UK citizens in the EU would be curtailed unless new rights were granted.
Note that any future UK-EU trade agreement would require the approval of all the EU27 – each country had a right to veto it. This gave EU27 countries powerful leverage to pursue their individual interests in the negotiations.
Politics apart, it was very unlikely that the future relationship would be agreed by December 2020. The technical and political complexity of the negotiations made this impossible. Several informed observers believed that an extension to December 2022 would not have been enough, either.
The long negotiation process created uncertainty beyond the end of the transition period, which would continue to reduce UK trade with other countries and foreign investment in the UK. Businesses and investors would inevitably redirect their attention from the UK to EU countries who would stay in the Single Market.