THE MAIN RISK TO BITIAN'S exit from Eurocom for North Americans doing business across the pond are three:
- Adjusting to another set of business-related laws
- Abandonment of the "glorious experiment" by other anchor nations such as Germany with its strong economy and France with its always underlying "France First" mentality.
- Giving credence to all the doom sayers who predict the end of the world as we know it
THERE WILL BE CHANGES as Britain examines Eurocom regulations it finds onerous.
Unlike in the United States, Eurocom countries may peacefully opt out of the union. A number of states tried to opt out of the U.S.(and formed the Confederate States of America), but despite the U.S. Constitution, the Federal president went to war to prevent the dissolution of the union.
North American - Canada and U.S. - organizations will need to watch closely as Britain reviews and modifies the following "tip of the iceberg" issues:
- domestic employment
- domestic tax
- foreign employment
- health and welfare rules for Britons employed by foreign-owned organizations and for non-Britons employed in Britain
- import/export restrictions
- passport and visa requirements
Basically, North American organizations will be dealing with British uniqueness as they did before Britain joined Eurocom.
Imagine if Scotland had voted to separate from England and Wales. Same issues, so Britain's exit from Eurocom should have been discussed previously.
Britain's exit cannot in any way be considered a "black swan" by any practitioner who keeps abreast of current history. Certainly Europe's ancient and recent history should have prepared practitioners for what should have been seen as inevitable: the splitting off of countries from Eurocom to return to their fiefdoms.
It was a grand experiment, kludging together nations that have historically been at war with one another to form a common bond against non-European nations (in particular the U.S. and Canada, Japan, China, and increasingly, South Korea).
Britain's exit from Eurocom might signal the end for the community. Practitioners should consider now the potential of dealing with each country re-establishing its own, independent laws; the same issues as Britain's "independence" now presents to non-British organizations - even those "minor" issues such as spelling (e.g., organiZation vs. organiSation, tIre vs. tYre and weights and measures).
Britons have for some time been agitating to leave Eurocom; any organization caught unprepared should fire its risk management staff - assuming it HAS a risk management staff and assuming it actually LISTENS to the staff.
This never should be considered a "black swan." Those birds rarely exist anywhere but in the imagination of an unprepared practitioner.
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