facebooktwittertelegramwhatsapp
copy short urlprintemail
+ A
A -
webmaster
dpa
Brussels
Plans from Britain to make changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol are “damaging to trust,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Tuesday in a statement.
Coveney said he “deeply regrets” the British government’s decision and such moves were against “the wishes of people and business in Northern Ireland.”
The Irish foreign minister was reacting to the British government’s decision to move ahead with plans to unilaterally change a trade agreement with the European Union to avoid border checks on the island of Ireland after Brexit.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the House of Commons that the planned legislation is to “lessen the burden on east-west trade and to ensure the people of Northern Ireland are able to access the same benefits as the people of Great Britain.”
Truss’ legislation proposes separate “green” and “red” lanes for goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland, with goods determined to stay in the United Kingdom to be free from EU custom checks.
The legislation is due in the “coming weeks,” before the British parliament’s summer recess, Truss said in her speech, outlining planned changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Reacting to the move, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic stated that such “unilateral actions were unacceptable” and urged Britain to engage with EU proposals for a solution.
Sefcovic added should Britain continue to act alone, the EU “will respond with all measures at its disposal,” referring to harsh trade tariffs available to the bloc as part of Britain’s withdrawal agreement from the EU. Britain has grown repeatedly frustrated with the terms of the deal, a trade agreement that binds Northern Ireland to EU custom rules despite being part of the United Kingdom.
As a consequence, goods have to be inspected between Britain and Northern Ireland, causing disruptions to business and angering the region’s pro-British unionist community.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland is the most vocal over the issue and is as a result blocking the formation of a new Northern Ireland government after recent elections.
The agreement was to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, because of fears such a division could rekindle tensions that would undermine the Good Friday Agreement, a peace deal that ended decades of sectarian violence.
The British government maintains the changes are to uphold this peace deal, however Coveney rejected this in his statement, saying solutions are already possible within the framework of the protocol.
copy short url   Copy
18/05/2022
10