UK sets up EU battle over Brexit
Irish FM says move is a ‘low point’ and damages relations
Ireland has ramped up direct shipping routes to mainland Europe since the end of the Brexit transition period, seeking new passages to the EU bypassing freight jams feared at UK borders.
The UK government on Monday introduced legislation to rip up post-Brexit trading rules for Northern Ireland, despite the possibility that could spark a trade war with the EU.
London says it still prefers a negotiated outcome with the European Union to reform the Northern Ireland Protocol.
But with talks stalled, the bill proposes overriding the EU withdrawal treaty that the UK signed, although the government in London insists it is not breaking international law.
The EU quickly threatened legal action in response while Dublin called it “a particular low point in the UK’s approach to Brexit.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said any solution must not threaten the US-brokered 1998 deal that has largely brought peace to the territory.
He urged British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss “to continue good faith negotiations with the EU to reach a solution that preserves the gains of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement,” a statement said.
The US has said any breach of the peace deal would threaten a bilateral trade deal with the UK. That could not come at a worse time for the UK, which is grappling with inflation at 40-year highs and rising household bills that have left many Britons struggling to make ends meet.
London claims the new legislation will address “burdensome customs processes, inflexible regulation, tax and spend discrepancies and democratic governance issues” that are “undermining” peace in Northern Ireland and have paralyzed its power-sharing government.
Truss spoke Monday to European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic and Ireland counterpart Simon Coveney to inform them the bill was being introduced in parliament.
She called it a “reasonable, practical solution to the problems facing Northern Ireland.” But Sefcovic said that the EU would not renegotiate its divorce deal and that Brussels would now consider reopening a suspended “infringement procedure” against Britain, as well as opening fresh cases.
“It is with significant concern that we take note of today’s decision by the UK Government to table legislation,” he said in a prepared statement to reporters in Brussels.
Sefcovic tweeted earlier that he had warned the UK minister that “unilateral action is damaging to mutual trust and a formula for uncertainty.”
Coveney told Truss the move marked “a particular low point in the UK’s approach to Brexit” and was “deeply damaging to relationships on these islands and between the UK and EU.”
But Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted that the move was “the right way forward” and was needed to maintain the “balance and the symmetry” of the Good Friday peace agreement between pro-UK unionists and nationalists who want a united Ireland.
