Frost raises prospect of EU court compromise
BRITAIN could compromise over the European Court of Justice’s role in Northern Ireland after Lord Frost suggested he would enter negotiations with Brussels without “red lines”.
In an effort to finally break the deadlock over the Northern Ireland Protocol, the EU yesterday proposed to reduce red tape and cut the majority of checks on British goods. Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vicepresident, also announced that Brussels would ease food standard rules and change its laws to ensure British medicines can still be sent to Northern Ireland.
Under the EU proposals, checks on food and plant products would be reduced by up to 80 per cent, a looming ban on British chilled meats would no longer happen, and customs paperwork would be cut in half. However, the EU’S proposals made no mention of the ECJ’S oversight of the protocol, which Mr Sefcovic suggested was a secondary issue and had been raised only “once” in his discussions with Northern Irish business leaders and representatives.
The EU has also turned down British requests to allow pets to move freely under the EU’S pet passport scheme. EU
officials insisted they had gone “far beyond tinkering at the edges” of the protocol, which was established to prevent a hard Irish border but has resulted in significant disruption to trade flows with the British mainland.
Government sources acknowledged the EU had “clearly” gone further than the UK had expected, with the two sides now expected to enter into intensive talks as early as next week. “We were taken by surprise,” one Whitehall insider said. “We genuinely weren’t expecting movement of that sort.”
They said the threat of the UK triggering Article 16 – enabling it to suspend parts of the protocol – would be put off during the talks into November.
The proposals were also welcomed by Micheál Martin, the Irish Taoiseach, while business leaders in Northern Ireland and Britain urged the Government to focus on ending disruption for business rather than “disputes about different legal systems.”
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, said that while the proposals were a “starting point”, they fell “far short of the fundamental change needed”.
Both Mr Sefcovic and Lord Frost also said publicly they would enter the negotiations without “red lines”.
“Although other people may use the words ‘red lines’, I never do,” Lord Frost told peers. “We’re beginning a negotiation and we’ve got a track record of reaching successful outcomes in negotiations despite the predictions that we would not, and I hope we’ll do so again this time.” Mr Sefcovic added “I believe we could be in the home stretch in relation to the protocol.”
However, government insiders said the future role of the ECJ remained the key “stumbling block”. Lord Frost is calling for the EU to agree to an international arbitration panel to rule on disputes rather than the ECJ, which the UK and unionist leaders in Belfast argue undermines the sovereignty of Northern Ireland.