We won’t know the fate of Irish border until 2021, says Leo

A FINAL deal on a trade agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom will not be confirmed until the Brexit transition phase ends in 2021, the Taoiseach said yesterday.

Leo Varadkar told the Dáil that it was likely the EU and UK will spend ‘the entirety of the transition period’ negotiating the legal text of a deal on their future trade agreement and their future relationship.

Ireland and the UK’s preferred method for avoiding a hard border – Option A – falls under those talks.

‘It’s not intended that the freetrade agreement and the new partnership agreement with the UK will be concluded in October, that’s not the case at all,’ the Taoiseach told the Dáil.

‘What we hope to have in October is a political declaration or political agreement of what should be in that new EUUK free-trade agreement. We will then spend probably the entirety of the transition period actually negotiating the legal text of that.’

The transition period was agreed at last week’s European Council summit and will take effect from when Brexit begins in March 2019, lasting until January 2021.

The Taoiseach came under fire during his visit to Brussels last week for suggesting the deadline for the UK to deliver a final deal on the ‘backstop’ – the last resort for avoiding a hard border – would be October as well.

Yesterday, he rowed back on that position, telling the Dáil: ‘It is our intention to agree the terms of the backstop by June, it’s aim to have it done by June, it’s our objective to have it done by June.

‘But as I said back in Brussels, I’m not willing to settle for anything just because it’s June. It has to be a good deal, it has to be the right deal, it has to be a good outcome.’

It came after Tánaiste Simon Coveney suggested the talks could collapse if an agreement isn’t made by June.

‘We have to try to get a withdrawal agreement and a withdrawal treaty signed off on before October, and I think, on that particular issue, Ireland has a very specific issue... and that’s the Irish border issue,’ he said in Sweden on Monday.

‘Hopefully, we can have that done by June, but if we don’t have it done by June, then I think, obviously, we have to raise some serious questions as to whether it is possible to finalise a withdrawal treaty at all.’

Mr Varadkar appeared to be bracing the public for a drawnout Brexit process yesterday, warning it would not blow over quickly.

‘Somebody said to me the day after the referendum, it was Michael Noonan in fact, that some people see Brexit as a storm,’ he said.

‘Something that’s going to be rough for a while and then it will blow over.

He said it’s not going to be like that, “Brexit is going to go on for years and years and years” and he was absolutely right.’

Fianna Fáil Brexit spokesman Stephen Donnelly said it would be impossible to know if Option A is possible through a freetrade agreement until the deal is on the table at the end of the transition phase.

However, he added that it was ‘unbelievable’ that the Government is allowing a hard commitment on the backstop to slide until June or even October.

‘That should have been signed off on last week, it’s the one thing that could scupper all of our preparations,’ he said.

A spokesman for the Taoiseach said: ‘In parallel with finalisation of the Withdrawal Agreement, it is envisaged that political agreement on the nature of the overall future EU-UK relationship will also be worked up by October.

‘However, the legal instrument to give effect to that future relationship will only be negotiated after the UK leaves the EU on March 29, 2019.

‘In other words, the detailed negotiation on that document will occur during the transition period.’

He added: ‘None of that changes the necessity to have the backstop spelt out in detail in the Withdrawal Agreement, and the need for that to be advanced rapidly over the coming weeks and ahead of the June European Council.’

‘Brexit is going to go on for years’