Ireland wants ‘more clarity’ on border after Brexit

DUBLIN: Ireland, armed with an EU veto and insistent on an open Irish border after Britain leaves the bloc, is hopeful agreement can be reached by midDecember but believes sufficient progress has yet to be made.

Foreign Minister Simon Coveney yesterday said his country needed more clarity from London.

The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which will be the UK’s only land frontier with the bloc after its departure, is one of three issues Brussels wants broadly solved before it decides next month on whether to move the talks on to a second phase about trade, as Britain wants.

‘‘I am hopeful this can be reached in December, but it is by no means predetermined . . . We need a lot more clarity,’’ Coveney told a parliamentary committee while repeating that with three weeks to go, Dublin has still not received proposals from London to allow talks to move on.

Before it can sign off on the first phase of talks, the Irish Government wants Britain to spell out in writing how it intends to make good on its commitment that the 500km border will remain as seamless postBrexit as it is today.

Dublin has said this can be best achieved if London commits, on behalf of Northern Ireland, that there would be no regulatory divergence north and south of the border.

Speaking in Paris, Ireland’s European Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said Dublin would continue to resist the idea expressed by some British ministers that talks needed to move on to the trade phase before the border issue could be resolved. — Reuters