With the United Kingdom’s exit, the EU would be in danger of losing the main supporter of the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TTIP). The EPP’s SME politicians are warning the Commission, ‘for this reason among others’, not to shut the door too hastily on Great Britain’s remaining in the EU.

According to the EPP SME Circle’s spokesperson Markus Pieper (CDU), the opinion expressed by EU Commissioner Malmström that the negotiating situation would not be changed by Brexit was ‘factually incorrect’. The British more than anyone are a key advocate of a free trade agreement with the United States. “Facts are being sacrificed to mainstream Britain-bashing here”, said the European deputy. “Anyone who slams the door in the face of the British is endangering TTIP”, Pieper declared. 

Without Great Britain, the EU would face a dramatic loss of economic power. As stated in an SME Circle press release, the EU’s global value added share declined from 22 % in 2005 to only 17 % in 2015. Italian MEP Herbert Dorfmann warns of a loss of economic standing for the EU: “Without Great Britain we will drop below 15 %”. “Thinking ten years down the line, in 2025 the EU’s value added share will be less than 10 %”, he goes on. “Then we will no longer be the ones setting industrial standards and norms; it will be the Indians and the Chinese”, Pieper predicts. So TTIP with the British is a key concern for the EU’s economic future and leadership in innovation. “If, on the other hand, we become an extension of China’s workbench, Europe will lose everything it has achieved in social terms”, Pieper said, as he warned of a breakdown of the negotiations.