Passporting

We’ve been making a killing selling semi-custom cowboy hats here in the United States for a while. But now that the rest of the world is catching on to the awesomeness that is country music, we’d really love to bring Fun Brims, Inc. products to the international market. Specifically, we’ve got our eyes on Europe. Luckily for us, countries in the European Economic Area (that’s EEA for short, and it includes all the EU countries plus Iceland, Lichtenstein, and Norway) engage in a little something called “passporting.” Once we’re approved to do business in one EEA country, we can do business in others without needing to get special prior authorization. This is great because it saves businesses like ours a ton of time, money, and paperwork-induced headaches.

And we know what everyone out there is thinking right now: “but Brexit.” What impact might the UK’s departure from the EU have on the whole passporting thing? Well, according to the experts, there are really two ways this whole thing could go. First, the country could leave the EU but still be a part of the EEA, in which case passporting rights would continue like nothing ever happened. Or, if they don’t do the EEA thing, British companies could end up having to apply to do business in an EEA country all over again, kind of like Fun Brims does.

That sounds like ten gallons of pain in the rear to us, but it might be worth doing if it’ll make the organization more profitable.