10 years on, Brexit impact remains limited, National Bank says
Ten years after the Brexit referendum, the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union has not triggered the major economic crisis some had feared. The fallout, although more severe in the UK than in the EU, has stayed within manageable bounds, according to the National Bank of Belgium (NBB).
Brexit has hit the UK harder than EU member states: the bloc merely lost simplified access to a smaller market, whereas the United Kingdom lost easy access to the much larger European single market. Yet the worst-case scenarios never materialised, the NBB argues, pointing to three factors.
First, a trade and cooperation agreement was concluded at the end of 2020, allowing the two sides to maintain an almost total absence of customs duties. This limited the economic losses that could have resulted from a trade relationship based solely on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
"The further apart the two regulatory frameworks move, the more costs will rise"
Second, businesses, households and governments gradually adjusted their behaviour. In Belgium, for instance, port authorities in Antwerp and Zeebrugge invested to anticipate new constraints and limit the risk of congestion.
Third, regulatory standards on both sides of the Channel have not yet diverged significantly. That does not mean problems could not arise in the future, however. "The further apart the two regulatory frameworks move, the more costs will rise," the National Bank warns.
Impact difficult to assess
The precise impact of Brexit remains difficult to isolate, the NBB notes, given the string of shocks that have hit the economy since: the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, turmoil on energy markets and a resurgence of protectionism.
For Belgium specifically, Brexit does not appear to have caused a major macroeconomic shock, the National Bank writes. That does not mean, however, that it has had no consequences at all.
For example, Belgian exports and imports of goods and services have grown more slowly with the UK than with the rest of the world. Belgian imports of British goods even fell sharply between 2015 and 2025, particularly in categories such as chemicals, transport equipment and machinery. Belgian exports to the United Kingdom have also grown more slowly.
PHOTO © Ben STANSALL / AFP
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