Brexit risks Irish peace, says German foreign minister

BREXIT has put the Irish peace process at risk, Germany’s foreign minister claimed yesterday, ahead of a meeting with James Cleverly.

Annalena Baerbock said that Britain had a responsibility to “protect and to implement” the Northern Ireland Protocol, as she is due to meet the Foreign Secretary today.

Mr Cleverly had earlier suggested that German commitment to the Protocol as it stands might not be as uncompromising as Berlin insists.

However, Ms Baerbock, who is holding talks with the Irish foreign minister in Dublin before meeting Mr Cleverly, said: “Brexit was and is a watershed for us all. That applies particularly to the relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland due to the division of the island of Ireland.

“It was only in 1998 that the Good Friday Agreement brought peace after more than 30 years of violent conflict in Northern Ireland.

“This peace, the fact that hostilities have ceased and both Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland can once again live alongside one another in a spirit of good neighbourliness must not be jeopardised.”

She added: “Yet precisely this is at stake as a result of Brexit and its consequences for trade, freedom of movement and other issues.”

Ms Baerbock said that the Protocol prevented “a hard border on the island of Ireland and thus also the reopening of the old wounds”.

Her comments will be seen as a response to an interview Mr Cleverly gave to Die Welt before the German minister’s visit.

“I think often what people say they want and what people actually want are subtly different,” he said.