Coveney calls UK actions on North ‘regrettable and damaging to trust’ with EU
MINISTER for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said that he ‘deeply regrets’ the British government’s decision to introduce legislation to disapply elements of the Northern Protocol.
He said in a statement that such unilateral action ‘is damaging to trust’ and will only ‘make it more challenging to find solutions to the genuine concerns’, that people in the North have about how the Protocol is working.
The British foreign secretary Liz Truss, yesterday set out her intention in the House of Commons to bring forward legislation within weeks overwriting parts of the post-Brexit deal.
The Bill will propose separate ‘green’ and ‘red’ lanes for goods travelling between Great Britain and the North, with those destined to stay within the UK, freed from EU-level checks.
There will be no crossover between the channels, it is understood, with goods filtering through one or the other, depending on their intended destination.
This will override the current arrangements, whereby the North is effectively kept in the EU’s single market for goods, with a hard border down the Irish Sea.
European Commission vicepresident Maros Sefcovic, who has been involved in negotiations with Liz Truss about the Protocol, criticised her plan and warned that Brussels could retaliate.
Should the UK proceed with the Bill, the EU will respond with ‘all measures at its disposal’, he said.
This is likely to aggravate fears the move could spark a trade war.
Minister Coveney said: ‘The path chosen by the British government is of great concern,’ noting that it comes at a time of calls for the executive to be re-established.
‘The British and Irish governments have a shared responsibility to support the institutions.
‘This unilateral action is contrary to the wishes of people and business’ in the North.
Mr Coveney welcomed that Liz Truss expressed a preference for a negotiated solution with the European Union, and said that the EU is ‘willing to resume talks with the UK at any time’.
Mr Sefcovic and representatives of the British government have been engaged in negotiations for a year to tweak the way in which the Protocol works in practice.
The Protocol, negotiated between the EU and UK as part of the Withdrawal Agreement, contains the post-Brexit trading arrangements for the North in order to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
‘There is a basis for solutions to all of these issues in the package of proposals brought forward by the Commission last year,’ Mr Coveney said.
‘I have spoken to Vice-President Sefcovic and many of my EU counterparts in recent days and it is clear that the EU remains united in its commitment’ to the North.
But prime minister Boris Johnson insisted problems with the Protocol must be addressed.
On a visit to Paddington station, London, he said: ‘What that actually involves is getting rid of some relatively minor barriers to trade. I think there are good, common sense, pragmatic solutions. We need to work with our EU friends to achieve that.’
The controversial legislation is due in the ‘coming weeks’, before the summer recess.
It had been heavily tipped to have been introduced to Parliament yesterday.
Ms Truss told the House of Commons the Bill will ‘ensure that goods moving and staying within the UK are freed of unnecessary bureaucracy’ through the new ‘green channel’.
She said it respect’s the North’s ‘place in the UK, in its customs territory, and protects the UK internal market.
‘At the same time it ensures that goods destined for the EU undergo the full checks and controls applied under EU law.’
Labour accused the British government of ‘trying to convince people its flagship achievement was not a negotiating triumph but a deal so flawed that they cannot abide by it’.
Shadow Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said: ‘Either they did not understand their own agreement, they were not upfront about the reality of it or they intended to break it all along.
‘The prime minister negotiated this deal, signed it, ran an election campaign on it.
‘He must take responsibility for it and make it work.’
Ms Truss said the new system will be underpinned by ‘data-sharing arrangements’.
The UK has proposed a ‘trusted trader’ scheme, whereby the EU
The EU is willing to resume talks
A significant step to power sharing
would be provided with real time commercial data, giving it confidence that goods intended for the North are not entering the EU single market.
Ms Truss insisted the proposals to reform the trading arrangements were ‘consistent with our obligations in international law’.
She said the move was ‘not about scrapping the Protocol’, but delivering on its objectives.
‘We will cement those provisions which are working in the Protocol, including the common travel area, the single electricity market and north-south co-operation, whilst fixing those elements that aren’t, on the movement of goods, goods regulation, VAT, subsidy control, and governance,’ she said.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the move was a ‘significant’ step towards getting power-sharing back up and running.
He told the Commons his party will take a ‘graduated and cautious approach’ as the legislation progresses.
It is understood the UK will pull the Bill in the event of all of its objectives being met by the EU.
The Good Friday Agreement contains provisions to protect and develop relations, both on a north-south basis on the island of Ireland and on an east-west basis between Ireland and Britain.
The UK says the Protocol has upset the balance of unionist and nationalist aspirations by undermining the east-west
part of the deal.