Just saw this... speech by the WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo explaining how complicated this procedure would be, time consuming and leave the UK in a weak position... not to mention the 5.6 billion pounds extra a year.
There are really no savings to leaving the EU - just a lot of extra costs, economic risk and enormous amounts of new negotiations.
www.wto.org/english/news_e/spra_e/spra126_e.htm - extracts from the speech:
"I have received many, many questions on the issue of the hour — the UK’s membership of the EU. So I think it would be remiss if I didn’t share some brief comments with you. This is, of course, a sovereign decision for the British people. But it’s important that in making this decision they have the facts.
Trade issues have been a major feature of the debate so far and it seems that there is still a great deal of confusion about the implications of a British exit from the EU. I would like simply to clarify some of the facts and practical implications as they relate to trade and the WTO.
The UK currently has preferential trade relationships with the EU, and with the 58 countries with which the EU currently has free trade agreements. In the event of a British exit, all of these relationships would need to be re-established to maintain the same preferential access the UK currently enjoys via the EU. This would probably entail negotiations.
In the meantime, while trade would continue, it could be on worse terms. Most likely, it would cost more for the UK to trade with the same markets — therefore damaging the competitiveness of UK companies. Here we’re talking about preferences on 60% of the country’s goods trade (that divides as around 47% with the EU itself, and around 13% with the EU’s preferential trade partners).
The implication is that UK exporters would risk having to pay up to 5.6 billion pounds each year in duty on their exports. And there could be an impact on services trade as well. In addition, the UK would also need to re-establish its terms of trade within the WTO. The UK, as an individual country, would of course remain a WTO member, but it would not have defined terms in the WTO for its trade in goods and services. It only has these commitments as an EU member. Key aspects of the EU’s terms of trade could not simply be cut and pasted for the UK. Therefore important elements would need to be negotiated.
There is no precedent for this — even the process for conducting these negotiations is unclear at this stage. I can say that negotiations merely to adjust members’ existing terms have often taken several years to complete — in certain cases up to 10 years, or more. However, as far as the UK’s case is concerned, it is impossible to tell how long it may take.
Upon leaving the EU, rights that the EU secured for its members would arguably no longer automatically apply to the UK. This includes the right to restrict certain aspects of the free movement of people and to protect public utilities from competition. The UK might need to negotiate with other WTO members to maintain these rights.
No WTO member can unilaterally decide what its rights and obligations are. I don’t have a crystal ball to assess the outcome of these various different negotiations — and nor does anybody else. The only certainty is uncertainty. However, I have spent my life as a trade negotiator and now as WTO Director-General it is my job to broker trade deals between nations, so I can try to offer some insight.
To begin with, I would say that trade negotiations are highly complex. Conducting multiple negotiations simultaneously would bring a further level of complexity.
In addition, you need willing partners. Other countries already have their negotiating priorities and may not be ready to shift resources to a new negotiation overnight. Of course, speaking of resources, all of this presumes that your own resources and negotiating infrastructure are already in place and fully operational.
Moreover, if you need to complete a deal quickly when the other side can wait, you are negotiating from a very weak position.
So, on this basis, it could take quite some time before the UK got back to a similar position that it has today in terms of its trading relationships with other countries."