Leo: backstop deal must be honoured

UK and EU ready to drop key demands, say reports

LEO Varadkar says Ireland has yet to receive word of any ‘dramatic moves’ in Brexit negotiations despite reports saying the UK and the EU have dropped some of their key demands.

Sterling rose on the back of reports in Bloomberg that Germany is prepared to accept a less detailed agreement on the future economic and trade ties between the EU and UK in a bid to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

In turn, Britain is willing to settle for a more ambiguous statement of intent in its future relationship with the bloc, and will defer some decisions until after Brexit takes place next year, according to the reports.

However, nothing has changed concerning the EU’s insistence that an agreement on the Irish ‘backstop’ solution for avoiding a hard border must be stitched into the withdrawal agreement.

However, speaking from the Fine Gael think-in in Galway yesterday, the Taoiseach dismissed the reports as ‘kite flying.’

‘I think we have seen over the past couple of weeks a fair bit of kite flying and a fair bit of posturing from lots of different quarters – only last week I saw a story of [France’s] President Macron being willing to make all sorts of concessions and that turned out not to be the case and this may be in that vein.’

‘We don’t have any indications yet of any dramatic move.’

He insisted Ireland would not back down in its demands for an Irish protocol on avoiding a hard border to be included in the exit deal, which will have to be agreed by November at the latest.

‘Our absolute position which we cannot depart from and we will stand our ground on is that there has to be an Irish protocol as part of the withdrawal agreement and that is something we have to insist on,’ he said. ‘We need that assurance that there won’t be a hard border on the island of Ireland. We have always been flexible on the detail and the language and that’s important, but the principle stands.’

Asked whether he would be willing to compromise on other areas he said negotiations are ‘complex’. ‘I would be wise not to engage in a running commentary,’ he added.

Meanwhile, officials in Brussels have moved to deny reports that the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said Theresa May’s Chequers plan for Brexit is ‘dead’.

British Labour MP Stephen Kinnock had claimed that Mr Barnier had told him ‘the proposals are dead’.

Mr Kinnock said: ‘I can tell you… absolutely, unequivocally…, without a shadow of a doubt that Chequers is dead in the water. Michel Barnier made it crystal clear that Chequers is completely unacceptable to the EU.’

But Mr Barnier’s adviser, Stefaan De Rynck, tweeted later to say the EU’s chief negotiator ‘actually said in no uncertain terms that Chequers has positive elements’ with ‘reference to security and foreign policy and to an free travel area ‘as a common denominator for the economic partnership after Brexit.’

A source close to Mr Barnier told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘In short, no he did not say that.’

However, the EU does have some misgivings about the Chequers plan.

Mr Barnier has noted that the UK is willing to align itself with EU standards only for standards that are checked at the border. ‘How, then, can we protect European consumers?’ he asked in July.

Negotiations have stepped up but there pessimism in political circles over a deal being reached by November.

‘We will stand our ground’