(Washington) The head of British diplomacy said on Tuesday that he saw “improvements” in discussions with the European Union on post-Brexit controls in Northern Ireland, a British province paralyzed by a political crisis.
“The discussions are taking place in good faith, in a very discreet way and this discretion, I believe, has helped us to achieve real improvements,” said James Cleverly in front of a research center in Washington.
“We want to obtain a result as quickly as possible,” he added while declining any predictions on the outcome of the discussions.
Negotiated at the same time as the Brexit treaty, the Northern Irish protocol effectively keeps Northern Ireland, which has the only British land border with the EU, in the single European market.
The text aims both to preserve the 1998 peace agreement, which ended three decades of bloody conflict, by avoiding the return of a hard border, and to protect the integrity of the single European market.
But the Unionists of the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party), see in the controls on goods from Great Britain a threat to the place of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and therefore boycott the local institutions. .
They require at least profound modifications to the Northern Irish protocol.
Expressing support for struggling businesses in Northern Ireland, the senior diplomat said the talks are “to ensure that part of my country is able to play a meaningful role for my country. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom”.