Border row pledge reaffirmed
LONDON: Britain and the European Union yesterday reiterated their commitment to resolve postBrexit trade frictions over the Northern Ireland border in the wake of a row over Covid19 vaccines.
Senior British minister Michael Gove and European Commission vicepresident Maros Sefcovic released a joint statement after they met yesterday, saying they had ‘‘a frank but constructive discussion’’.
They added they would ‘‘spare no effort’’ to implement solutions agreed in December under the socalled Northern Ireland Protocol, but did not provide details.
Britain’s exit from the EU’s trading orbit in January has led to significant disruption to trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, straining relations as London and Brussels hold each other responsible for the problem.
The dispute revolves around the EU’s insistence on Britain honouring its withdrawal treaty, which left the British province of Northern Ireland within the EU’s single market sphere due to its open land border with Ireland, meaning a customs border in the Irish Sea dividing the province from mainland Britain.
On the eve of the talks, Sefcovic had ruled out most of the concessions Britain had asked for, saying in a letter to Gove that ‘‘blanket derogations . . . cannot be agreed beyond what the protocol foresees already’’.
Britain has stepped up efforts to extract concessions from the EU over Northern Ireland’s trade arrangements since the European Commission sought briefly last month to stop Covid19 vaccines being delivered from Ireland into Northern Ireland.