ON SIDELINES OF SUMMIT, FRANCE URGES UK TO ‘KEEP ITS WORD’ OVER BREXIT

CARBIS BAY, UK: France on Saturday told UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to stick to the terms of the Brexit deal he signed with Europe, amid a standoff over new trading arrangements in Northern Ireland.

Johnson met French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the G7 summit in England, with Brussels angered by Britain’s failure to implement border checks on goods.

A source in Macron’s office said he explained to Johnson in no uncertain terms that the UK should “keep its word” and abide by the terms of the deal he signed with the European Union just last December.

Other European leaders attending the summit, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, are expected to deliver the same message.

The row over the so-called “Northern Ireland protocol”, agreed separately to the Brexit divorce deal, has dogged the showpiece G7 summit in Cornwall. The Times reported that President Joe Biden had ordered US diplomats to rebuke London for threatening peace in the UK province by failing to implement border checks.

Macron also blasted the UK and said it was “not serious to want to revisit, in the month of July, what we finalised after years of work in December”.

“I believe in the power of treaties. I believe in seriousness. Nothing is renegotiable. Everything is applicable,” he said in Paris on Thursday.

Britain has repeatedly called for more flexibility and pragmatism from the EU, given Northern Ireland’s violent past and its fragile current peace.