A minister has ruled out the UK joining a pan-European agreement to bolster post-Brexit trade.
Matthew Pennycook said the Government was “not seeking” to participate in the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (PEM).
Maros Sefcovic, the official who led post-Brexit negotiations for the EU, had told the BBC that the UK joining the PEM is “something we could consider”.
The deal allows for tariff-free trade of goods across Europe, as well as some North African and Levantine nations.
Asked if the UK could join the PEM, housing minister Mr Pennycook said: “We’re not seeking to participate in that particular arrangement.”
He also told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think in general the Government’s been very clear… that we do want a closer relationship with our European partners, both in trading terms but also, importantly – and this speaks to your previous segment – in terms of security and defence co-operation, where we need to work far more closely.
“So absolutely, yes, we do want a closer relationship. As for this particular arrangement: no, we’re not seeking to participate in it at the present time.”
Some business groups have backed the UK joining the PEM as it would help to maintain complex supply chains, but the previous Conservative government chose not to pursue it as part of a post-Brexit trade agreement.
Speaking to the BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Sefcovic said the idea had not been “precisely formulated” and the “ball is in the UK’s court”.
The UK Government has begun consulting businesses on the benefits of PEM and how it could help cut red tape and improve trade, the BBC said.
Mr Sefcovic also told the broadcaster he would like to see the possibility of a full-scale veterinary agreement between the EU and UK reviewed.
If UK food and farm products were given single market treatment, “we would have to have the same rules and we have to upgrade them at the same time – we call it dynamic alignment”.
The lack of a veterinary agreement after Brexit has been a major sticking point for UK food businesses hoping to export to Britain’s nearest neighbours.
In the Commons, Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds was asked by the Conservatives to rule out dynamic alignment.
The step “potentially brings the European court back into having jurisdiction over the United Kingdom”, shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart said.
The Tory frontbencher added: “Will he rule out the ECJ (European Court of Justice) having jurisdiction over the UK in any regard in future?”
Mr Thomas-Symonds, who is responsible for EU relations, told MPs: “We’ve set out our red lines in our manifesto, we’ve set out the examples of things we are seeking to negotiate. That is already there.”
Dame Emily Thornberry, chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, told the BBC the UK’s post-Brexit trade settlement with the trade bloc had “all kinds of holes” in it.
The Labour MP added: “Within that agreement there is a mechanism for improving it, and we need to seize that opportunity, because we need to make sure that within the constraints of the vote to leave the European Union, we nevertheless do everything that we can to get rid of barriers to trade with our nearest neighbours and the people who we trade with the most.”
The “uneven and difficult” situation with veterinary checks needed to be resolved, she added.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said ruling out the PEM proposal was an “act of economic negligence”.
He said: “It is alarming that the Government is happy to negotiate with China but won’t even look at a better trading arrangement with our closest neighbours in Europe.”