Supposed to resolve the thorny question of the only land border between the United Kingdom and the European Union, the Northern Irish protocol finds itself at the heart of new tensions.
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The news around Brexit is resurfacing and the European Union (EU) has decided to respond firmly to London. Unilateral changes to Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit status would not “not acceptable” and the EU will have to “respond with all the means at its disposal”, has warned European Commission Vice-President Marcos Sefcovic in a statement (in English) posted Tuesday, May 17.
The European Union takes very seriously the threat of the head of British diplomacy, Liz Truss, to introduce a bill “in the coming weeks”, in particular to make changes to the Northern Irish protocol, which provides that checks on goods from Great Britain are carried out upon their arrival in Northern Ireland.
Since the signing of the Brexit agreements in January 2020, the bone of contention between the European Union and the United Kingdom has been Northern Ireland: London does not want a separation between the two Irelands so as not to inflame new tensions between unionists and separatists. But for the EU, this separation is necessary, otherwise, products that do not comply with European law could enter its territory via Northern Ireland.
To unblock the situation, the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, plans to change certain clauses of the Brexit agreement relating to Northern Ireland, which the EU does not want, nor the head of Irish diplomacy, Simon Coveney. In the event of a unilateral change, the EU’s response could therefore be commercial.
In the meantime, the European Commission says “ready to continue discussions with the British government in order to identify common solutions within the framework of the protocol”.