EU ‘will retaliate’ if UK breaks protocol

BRITISH prime minister Boris Johnson’s threats to rewrite part of the Northern Ireland Protocol would result in retaliation from Brussels, the EU’s ambassador in the UK said.

Joao Vale de Almeida said there was no scope for reopening negotiations on the protocol and warned that ‘action calls for reaction’ if the UK unilaterally tears up parts of the deal.

Foreign secretary Liz Truss has set out plans for legislation to amend the deal. And Mr Johnson has insisted of his plans for the protocol: ‘We don’t want to nix it, we want to fix it’.

But the ambassador said: ‘It’s not very reassuring if you go into a negotiation where you are presented with two options – either renegotiation or unilateral action to override the treaty. This is not the best way to fix. This is rather a way maybe to nix.

‘So if we want to fix it, which is what we want and I understand this is what the government wants as well, we need to create a better atmosphere.’

There was ‘untapped potential’ in the proposals set out by European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic in talks with the UK

government, he said, warning of retaliation if the UK instead chose to act unilaterally.

‘There is still potential in the proposals that we’ve made. We would like to focus on that instead of going unilateral,’ he said.

‘Unilateral calls for unilateral. Action calls for reaction. And is that what we want, an escalation around Northern Ireland at this present point in time? I don’t think so.’

The ambassador told reporters in Westminster there was little prospect of EU member states giving Mr Sefcovic a mandate to rewrite the protocol in his talks with Ms Truss.

He said there was a lack of trust between the two sides and there was little sign of a ‘happy ending’ in the protocol saga.

Downing Street said the EU’s proposals for fixing the Protocol did not ‘address the problems that we know exist on the ground’.