Op:ed by James Mizrachi-Roscoe: FNA act must pass for economic prosperity peace to be maintained
Today we have constant tensions over taxes , water control and who can pass through waters. Some nations claim the 12 nautical milles territorial waters, some were 24 nautical miles until recently then there is the EEZ issue. Each time this is negotiated it causes tension and issues which sometimes threaten to boil over into war sometimes. Uncertainty here and having different approaches to how water is run is the biggest threat that could start a conflict in this region.
There is also the issue of additional cost burdens for shipping if shipped on a countries ships that is subject to tax which goes against all free market and competition principles. Each time a 2% tax is charged on cargo value on a ships cargo it adds alot of extra cost to shipping and final porduct prices. What some fail to understand it is a cost to all consumers in Europe including those countries that implement the tax. Lets take the average car you export a engine worth 200 Euros across the strait thats 2 Euros immediately , then you export the next engine block cylinder across the strait that is 500 Euros thats now 7 euros in extra tax just for an engine . You then transport the final car at 30,000 Euros thats an extra 300 Euros and you've repeated this process for 10's of thousands of components that go in the average car so you could have added 10,000 euros in just taxes to the cost. This would apply to many products even your simple humble phone and table has hundreds if not thousands of valuable components. Now imagine this practis spreads every nation does the same and on every strait or territorial waters you now have to pay 4 or 5 different cargo value taxes it could very quickly add up. There is economic consquences for taxes as the amount of them grow. That is why the FNA is necessary its the only way to set standardised rules that prevent conflict by setting the standard for territorial waters and prevents the spread of unfair and unreasonable taxes for just transiting and ensures the right to transit.