Summer of storms. Summer storms?

21 July 2016
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Storms are natural. They happen from time to time, they are unpleasant and frightening, but in the end one survives and the sun reappears.
("The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain", written by Stephen Bungay)

La Tempesta, Giorgione, near 1508, Accademia Gallery, Venice, Italy

On June 23, without us having almost had time to see lightning or hear thunder, the beginning of the biggest summer storm in recent times occurred: the supporters of "Brexit" won the referendum on the United Kingdom's permanence in the European Union.

I leave to the monographic pages on Brexit the analysis of its possible consequences and I refer, among the excellent sources that are appearing, to the one that our office has created in this regard (Bird & Bird & Brexit).

I do not intend to add more words to the "Brexit verbiage" but I do intend to share with the blog's followers the two reflections that for me has been what I consider a "summer storm" and not a "tsunami" as some consider it.

In the first place, my great surprise is not so much in the result but in the fact that the parents of the “consensus binding approach” have surrendered to the perverse tyranny of the majorities that this type of referendum implies. All of us who have been working with the English for years are fascinated by their peculiar way of conducting meetings and reaching unanimous solutions, in which there are no winners and losers and in which everyone gives in and is a participant in the decision. It is true that sometimes Sometimes it is a very "remote-controlled" and "pre-cooked" consensus, but a consensus nonetheless. The now classic book of Lawrence Susskind Breaking Robert's Rules translated in Spanish as “Better than most” describes it very well.

Secondly and getting into the essence of the blog, my great concern is not how leaving Europe will affect the digital economy of the United Kingdom but how it will affect the European digital economy that the great defender of economic freedom, innovation and pragmatism totally or partially ceases to have a voice and vote in Continental Europe.

Of course, British concerns about the impact Brexit may have on important legislative initiatives the country was discussing such as the bill known asDigital Economy Bill» in which the right to 10 Mbps broadband is established among the universal telecommunications service obligations; access to European funds that are financing large infrastructure projects such as the deployment of "Smart meters"; the personal data protection framework in which the United Kingdom will remain considering that the new European Data Protection Regulation has already been approved and will apply from May 2018; the state of the subject matter of the important Directives that have been discussed for more than four years and that have been recently approved and are now pending incorporation into the law of the Member States – such as Directive 2016/1148 on network security information systems known as the “NIS” or “Cybersecurity” Directive or the future Trade Secrets Directive; and a long etcetera.

But, personally, it is we continental Europeans who should be most concerned about the disturbing path that future European regulation and the development of our digital economy may take without the United Kingdom, which has been the clear counterweight to the trend towards over-regulation or the brakes on the free circulation of personal data with the United States that have been incited from the Continent - and some courts.

It is embarrassing to read these days some interested opinions that are already beginning to propose cities on the Continent as possible substitutes for London as the main focus for the creation of start-ups in Europe such as Berlin or Paris. Those who make these statements do not understand that above this European Union (I say "this European Union" and not Europe) is the economic freedom which is the key to creating the conditions that allow the virtuous circle of entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustained economic growth and development to develop.

The United Kingdom has always known how to understand that the ten freedoms that measure economic freedom, that is, freedom of business, international trade, fiscal, monetary, investment, financial, labor, freedom from corruption from absolute respect to Property rights and, of course, a state sector of a rational size, are the key to that virtuous spirit and that is why I am convinced that Brexit, at least for the United Kingdom, will be nothing more - and nothing less - than a virulent summer storm.

The Asian proverb says that ""When the wind starts to blow, some run to hide while others build windmills." to which I would add that when it starts to rain the English always take out, from no one knows where, their umbrella and they have the art of knowing how to overcome the inclement weather but also, if necessary, get wet as they demonstrated in the "Storm of War” from 76 summers ago.