The United Kingdom warned the European Union This Thursday, May 12th It will have no choice but to act if the bloc does not show “the flexibility required to help resolve” the problems caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol.
According to a British government statement, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss informed EU Vice President Maros Sefcovic during a phone conversation.
“The UK’s priority is to protect peace and stability in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Protocol has become the biggest obstacle to establishing an executive in Northern Ireland,” the British official told Sivkovic.
Furthermore, he emphasized that “the current situation is causing unacceptable disruption to trade and has created a two-tiered system where people in Northern Ireland are not treated the same as everyone else in the UK”.
According to the statement, Truss stressed the importance of supporting the 1998 Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and that the European Commission “has a responsibility to show more pragmatism and to ensure that the protocol meets its original objectives”.
He also reiterated British proposals to “reform the protocol” and stressed “why the EU proposals are holding us back, by creating more checks and paperwork”.
See also: The UK considers the EU’s offer ‘insufficient’ to solve the problems in Northern Ireland
For his part, Sefkovic reiterated the bloc’s official position on this issue, saying “there is no room to expand the EU’s negotiating mandate or come up with new proposals to reduce the general level of trade friction.”
The Foreign Secretary noted this with regret, saying that the situation in Northern Ireland was a matter of internal peace and security for the UK, and if the EU did not show flexibility to help resolve these issues, then the responsible government would have “no choice but to act,” the statement said.
The Northern Ireland Protocol makes border controls mandatory for any animal or plant products, including frozen meat and processed meat products, prior to transport to Northern Ireland, which is in line with EU rules and regulations.
The protocol establishes a de facto trade border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom left the bloc on January 31, 2020 as a result of a 2016 referendum that ended the country’s more than 40 years of membership in the European bloc. What became known as Brexit.
The agreement signed by the two parties included the Northern Ireland Protocol, which virtually avoids the difficult border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
See also: The Vice-President of the European Commission said that the EU will not “renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol”
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which lost the seat of the country’s largest party last week after Sinn Fein’s historic victory in the assembly election, said it will not run for a new executive position unless protocol is reformed.
The DUP supported Boris Johnson’s first government, which concluded Brexit, the European Union Withdrawal Agreement, and the Additional Protocol for Northern Ireland.
However, the DUP claims that the protocol separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom, an idea that has also been voiced by the central government since Brexit.
* Aisha Sandoval Laguna contributed to this article.
Anadolu Agency website contains only part of the news stories presented to subscribers on the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summary.
“Subtly charming bacon junkie. Infuriatingly humble beer trailblazer. Introvert. Evil reader. Hipster-friendly creator.”