Lisbon, Portugal:
Britain on Tuesday stated it sent the EU a new legal text to overhaul fractious post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, and renewed threats to abandon the present deal.
The legal proposal, dispatched on the eve of the European Union setting out its personal plans, comes amid vehement opposition to the so-named Northern Ireland protocol from some in the British province.
It follows months of demands by London for the pact to be revised to transform the guidelines about internal UK trade and the arbitration mechanisms governing it.
In a speech in Lisbon, Brexit minister David Frost argued the new text worked “with the grain” of the current deal, but would “deliver significant change” and place it on a “durable footing”.
“Without new arrangements in this area, no protocol will ever have the support across Northern Ireland it needs to survive,” he stated, reiterating warnings London could trigger a clause scrapping the agreement.
“We would not go down this road gratuitously or with any particular pleasure,” he stated.
“It is our fundamental responsibility to safeguard peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland, and that is why we cannot rest until the situation has been addressed.”
Britain voted to leave the EU in a landmark referendum in 2016. When it sooner or later departed from its guidelines and regulations at the start off of 2021, the Northern Ireland protocol came into impact.
It has kept the British-ruled province inside components of the EU customs union and single market place in order to avert a difficult border with EU member Ireland.
The border was a former flashpoint in the sectarian conflict more than British rule amongst pro-UK unionists and pro-Ireland nationalists, which wound down in 1998.
– ‘No appetite’ –
However, the protocol has expected new checkpoints at ports in the area to cease the threat of goods from England, Scotland and Wales acquiring into the EU by the back door.
Pro-UK unionists in Northern Ireland say it has made a border in the Irish Sea that undermines the province’s spot in the wider UK, and strengthens pro-Irish republicans’ case for a united Ireland.
Frost denied Britain had agreed the protocol in December 2019 in negative faith devoid of intending to implement it, insisting that it took “a risk” and blamed Brussels for its implementation.
His proposed modifications involve permitting goods to circulate practically freely amongst Northern Ireland and the rest of mainland Britain and removing the European Court of Justice (ECJ) as the scheme’s ultimate arbiter.
“For the EU now to say that the protocol — drawn up in extreme haste in a time of great uncertainty — can never be improved upon, when it is so self-evidently causing such significant problems, would be a historic misjudgement,” he warned.
His remarks came as the European Commission was poised to unveil its personal plans Wednesday to accommodate British misgivings, with the mood in Brussels increasingly frustrated.
“There is no appetite among the member states to be strung along by Britain,” an EU diplomat told AFP on Monday.
“The window for dialogue is closing and it’s not good that even before the EU makes its proposal it is refused.
“This proposal will be as far as the EU can take it.”
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