Barnier wants more British clarity and warns time is running out

THE EU’s lead Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier appealed for more clarity from the UK as he warned that time is running out to reach a deal on Brexit.

Both the EU and the UK are racing to conclude a deal on the details of a plan to avoid a hard Border in Ireland.

A key EU summit in October has been touted as the deadline in order to allow EU parliaments time to ratify the agreement before Brexit takes effect in March 2019.

Speaking at an event in Brussels yesterday, Mr Barnier said there were “still too many questions and too few answers”. He said the EU proposes that checks would be carried out on goods entering Northern Ireland from other parts of the UK. That poses difficulties for British policymakers as it treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the country.

Mr Barnier said he was not asking for a border between Northern Ireland and the UK, and that these were “only technical controls on goods”.

He said that these checks should be “de-dramatised”, adding that similar checks were carried out when livestock or plants come into Northern Ireland.

The EU fears that without these checks the single market could be undermined.

If goods from countries outside the single market are allowed to get in without paying the required tariffs, that raises the chances of EU businesses taking an economic hit.

“We need a cast-iron guarantee in the withdrawal agreement to avoid a hard Border, whatever the outcome of the negotiations and the future relationship between the EU and the UK,” Mr Barnier told the event, which was organised by Irish think-tank the Institute of International and European Affairs.