Make border deal legally binding or else, UK told
BREXIT negotiations could be halted by the EU if Britain does not agree to put the backstop agreement on the border on a legal footing by June.
Simon Coveney has recently demanded the UK come forward with solutions, warning that the EU will delay or even block exit talks if ‘significant progress’ on the border issue is not reached by the summer.
Now sources close to the Foreign Affairs Minister have interpreted that demand as a call for the UK to finally put its guarantees on the border with the North into a legally binding agreement.
The source said: ‘October is the date when the clock runs out. That’s the time we need to have everything agreed and signed off on by. Which is why we need to see significant progress by June.’
Dublin has grown increasingly frustrated by London’s attempts to put off the border question – as repeated assurances from the UK government that there will be ‘no return to a hard border’ are no longer deemed sufficient.
The source said: ‘We have a political deal on the backstop which was made in December. We have that protocol.
‘We’ve had the draft withdrawal agreement which was rejected by Theresa May and we have had numerous guarantees from the British government that there will be no hard border.
‘We’re running out of road. It’s time for all those aspirations to be turned into a legally binding guarantee.’
Meanwhile, British prime minister Theresa May’s de facto deputy, cabinet minister David Lidington, is due to visit Dublin tomorrow to meet the Tánaiste.
They are expected to discuss the latest progress by Mrs May’s cabinet, which is due to meet today.
But sources with knowledge of the meeting say they are not expecting any breakthroughs. ‘There’s not going to be any eureka moment where it’s all resolved. It’s an important meeting of the UK cabinet, but I wouldn’t make any predictions in terms of what will come out of that,’ the source said.
The EU27 – the members of the European Union minus the UK – have been consistent in their position over the Irish border. Despite this, the June deadline is likely to be interpreted in London as a hardening of their stance.
‘Significant progress’