EU committee concerned over scrutiny of Protocol

Report critical of Government regarding workings of Brexit deal

THERE are concerns the UK Government is not facilitating an adequate level of scrutiny around the workings of the Brexit withdrawal agreement and its impact on Northern Ireland.

The House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee called on the government to provide it with more information on its European Union (EU) divorce deal and in a timelier manner.

In a report published today the committee highlighted a number of concerns around the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The Protocol prevents a hard border on the island of Ireland by creating a trade border in the Irish Sea, keeping Northern Ireland aligned with the EU’S customs rules.

It has angered unionists who feel it has cut the region off from the rest of the UK and has been partly blamed for the widespread disorder in recent days.

Implementation of the Protocol is overseen by the UK/EU Joint Committee which is responsible for managing the withdrawal agreement.

The European Scrutiny Committee’s report said it had been provided with information about the joint committee that was “both incomplete and too late” and that as a result it had been unable to “exercise proper democratic scrutiny”.

It is particularly important to have accurate information as the joint committee “can make legally binding decisions that concern the people and businesses of Northern Ireland”, the report said.

It identified a number of areas around which the committee needed more information to carry out proper scrutiny and asked a number of questions of the government.

The report described the parts of the Protocol relating to the application of EU tariffs on goods entering Northern Ireland as “complex and controversial” and said it includes a very restrictive definition of goods “not at risk”, meaning that EU tariffs are potentially applicable on an indeterminate number of imports into Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

It said the UK and the EU “interpret the applicability of EU state aid rules under the Northern Ireland Protocol in very different ways” and the committee was concerned about this difference in understanding because “it may impact on the willingness of companies to accept subsidies, or of state authorities to grant them”.

Concern was expressed the EU’S interpretation of the rules could result in the EU intervening with respect to UK subsidies that only have a minimal, or even “merely potential” impact on trade between Northern Ireland and the EU, while the UK believed EU intervention would only be permissible if the EU Commission could prove a ‘real and material impact’ on Eu-northern Ireland trade.

It also noted that a pool of UK members to form an arbitration panel to resolve disputes around the withdrawal agreement was communicated to the committee one day before the list was adopted.

The report does not take account of grace periods under which some EU rules do not impact goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and delay the application of EU food safety and animal health law on items entering the region.

The European Scrutiny Committee said it would “return to these issues once the rapidly changing political and legal context surrounding them had settled”.

It called on the government to provide detailed agendas ahead of joint committee meetings, to make the minutes of these UK/ EU meetings publicly available and to provide analyses of EU legislation relevant to Northern Ireland to Parliament before any decision is made.

While the committee accepted the government had “made statements about the importance of such scrutiny” it said “without providing the necessary information to facilitate meaningful engagement, those statements are at risk of ringing hollow”.

‘It was unable to exercise proper scrutiny’