Leo: ‘We’re close to protocol deal’
Taoiseach confident of breakthrough on North
LEO VARADKAR has said ‘we’re not there yet’ on a protocol deal for the North but added that he was ‘quietly confident’ that there could be an agreement within a week.
The Taoiseach said that such an agreement would be a ‘big boost’ for EU-UK relations, but would also achieve the ‘amazing prize’ of re-establishing the North’s powersharing institutions.
It comes as diplomatic efforts have been ramped up to solve problems with the implementation of the protocol; these included hastilyarranged meetings between British prime minister Rishi Sunak and the five main Stormont parties yesterday.
Although details of what was on offer were scant, soundings from the parties indicated a deal could be on the horizon.
Mr Varadkar said he would speak with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen at the weekend,
‘An end to a very difficult period’
and had spoken to some of the North’s parties on Thursday night and yesterday.
‘I do believe the prospect is there of having an agreement possibly within a week,’ he told reporters in Limerick.
‘It’s not finalised, we haven’t all seen the final text yet, but we are getting there.
‘I’m quietly confident that within the next week or two we could be in a position to sign off on agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom, and that would be a big boost, I think.
‘First of all because it would allow us to normalise political and trading relationships between Britain and the EU, including Ireland, putting an end to a very difficult period that started with the Brexit referendum. But most importantly, it opens the prospect of getting the assembly and executive up and running in Northern Ireland, so the people have a government functioning and have the Good Friday Agreement working again.’
He added that part of the reason there has been progress is that the details have remained closely guarded.
The leader of the DUP, Jeffrey Donaldson, has also expressed hope that the UK and EU can strike a deal.
Commenting after meeting Mr Sunak in Belfast, Mr Donaldson said it appeared ‘real progress’ had been made in negotiations between London and Brussels, but he said more work was needed to get a final deal ‘over the line’.
The protocol, agreed between the UK and the EU post-Brexit, created economic barriers to trade being shipped from Britain to the North.
It has proven to be deeply unpopular with unionists, who claim it has weakened the North’s place within the UK, and the DUP has used a Stormont veto to collapse the powersharing institutions in protest at the arrangements.
The immediate future of devolution at Stormont, therefore, rests on whether or not the DUP is content with any new protocol deal.
Mr Donaldson said: ‘The decisions that will be taken by the prime minister and by the European Commission will either consign Northern Ireland to more division or they will clear a path towards healing and to the restoration of the political institutions.’
Mr Sunak is set to join European leaders in Germany this weekend for the Munich Security Conference and the protocol is likely to be discussed on the margins.
British foreign secretary James Cleverly travelled to Brussels yesterday for a meeting with European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic – an encounter that both politicians described as ‘constructive’.