Tensions: Beattie rounds on Coveney NIO official for Washington ‘to boost relations with Biden and counteract Brussels’ spin’
ULSTER Unionist MLA Doug Beattie has accused the Republic’s Foreign Affairs Minister of “almost Trumpian levels of spin” after Simon Coveney spoke about the growing tension between the EU and the UK over Brexit to an influential group of US Congress members.
Mr Coveney and EU Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic spoke to the Friends of Ireland caucus on Wednesday, including its chairman, Congressman Richard Neal.
The group discussed Northern Ireland and concerns around the UK’S extension of post-brexit grace periods.
Mr Coveney said he and Mr Sefcovic told the group of tensions around the Northern Ireland Protocol as well as the “divisions and polarisation” of politics here. He added it has caused a strain on the relationship between the EU and the UK Government.
Mr Coveney told RTE Morning Ireland yesterday that Mr Sefcovic “outlined that the EU side really has no option but to take legal action, which will begin this week”.
Mr Coveney said politics is “very strained” in Northern Ireland because of perceptions around the protocol and its implementation.
“My job is to ensure that what has been agreed, as a mechanism to deal with the disruption that Brexit causes on the island of Ireland, which is the protocol, is part of an international treaty, as part of international law,” Mr Coveney added. “We cannot move forward on the basis of one side just deciding unilaterally ‘Well, this is what must be done and we can’t wait for the other sides to agree with us’, and that’s essentially what the British Government has done.”
A SENIOR official from the Northern Ireland Office is to travel to the US with the aim of improving relations with President Joe Biden’s administration.
The move, reported in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, is designed to “counter the EU’S efforts to turn President Biden’s administration against the UK”.
It comes amid UK-EU tensions over London’s decision to extend an exemption on Brexit checks on goods from Britain to supermarkets here.
The official will be tasked with providing factual briefings to US politicians, as well as rebutting EU claims made about the UK post-brexit, the newspaper reported.
Secretary of State Brandon Lewis is understood to be driving the plan, having stepped up engagement with US Democrats in recent months in a bid to keep the new regime onside.
The NIO declined to comment on the matter.
Northern Ireland follows the EU’S rules on trade to prevent a hard border in Ireland.
However, the protocol governing that has caused problems for some suppliers in Britain, prompting anger from unionists, who claim it undermines the Union.
Last week the UK Government unilaterally extended grace periods
limiting bureaucracy linked to the protocol until October. They had been due to expire at the end of this month.
The UK also temporarily lifted the protocol’s ban on plants potted in soil in Britain from being imported here.
The European Commission is now preparing to take legal action against the Government, accusing it of breaching the terms of the protocol.
First Minister Arlene Foster described the reaction from the EU to the extension of the grace period as “hysterical”.
The President, who is of Irish descent, previously expressed concerns about the situation in Ireland following Brexit.
He told reporters in November last year the US did not want a “guarded border” in Ireland and that it had taken a lot of hard work to reach a settlement and end decades of conflict.
Before his ascent to the White House after victory against Donald Trump, Mr Biden said any UK-US post-brexit trade deal had to be “contingent” on respect for the Good Friday Agreement and must not endanger the peace process.
Brexit Minister Lord Frost said London would defend “vigorously” any legal action brought by Brussels.
He insisted the measures were “operational, technical and temporary”.
On Wednesday Mr Lewis also insisted the move had been “lawful”.