EU prepared to improve offer on NI border checks

THE European Union is prepared to improve its offer to cut customs checks in Northern Ireland in a bid to secure a new Brexit agreement for the province.

But Maros Sefcovic, a European Commission vice-president, will tomorrow warn a deal won’t be possible unless the UK drops its “unattainable” demands on the role of European judges.

The EU’S Brexit negotiator will tell Lord Frost, his British counterpart, that their talks over the Northern Ireland Protocol will fail unless the UK takes a step towards the bloc’s proposals.

The pair will meet for the fourth consecutive week in London tomorrow as part of negotiations over the province’s Brexit arrangements.

Mr Sefcovic is growing increasingly frustrated at Britain’s failure to engage with his proposals, which remove the need for up to 50 per cent of checks on goods and about 80 per cent of checks for animal and plant health reasons.

The Daily Telegraph understands the Commission vice-president could, however, improve his offer if Lord Frost agrees to shelve his own plans and discuss the bloc’s proposals to cut border controls. “We’ve moved and it’s time for the UK to as well. The percentage of controls removed could yet increase, through negotiation,” a European source said.

The Commission believes its proposals are a “far-reaching” offer to end disruption caused by the protocol.

But Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, is calling for the treaty, agreed in October 2019, to be completely overhauled, including scrapping the European Court of Justice’s role in policing the agreement.

He has said the Luxembourg-based court’s oversight role in managing disagreements on the protocol must be removed if both sides are going to resolve the stand-off.

Brussels has repeatedly ruled out a wholesale renegotiation of the protocol and insists the ECJ’S powers are nonnegotiable because Northern Ireland has access to the EU single market.