David Frost: The EU needs to re-examine the Northern Ireland protocol

The writer is the UK Brexit Minister

This week Maros Sefcovic, Vice-President of the European Commission, and I will meet in London under our new trade agreement to reach a UK / EU Cooperation Council. It’s a historic moment. Due to the tremendous change in our relationship and the expected early friction, I am confident that we will solve the ongoing difficulties as we are equally friendly and independent trading partners.

We will also look at the withdrawal agreement and the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol. Things are more difficult here.

When we agreed on this new protocol in 2019, we did so to get rid of the old deplorable “backlog” and implement Brexit, while maintaining our top priority to protect the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. and avoiding a hard limit. The balance was delicate, complete with a spirit of commitment. We hoped to be able to function in a way that respects the sensitive policy of Northern Ireland – after all that was the first thing to do with the special arrangements.

We now have experience exploiting the protocol. This government has put in tremendous resources to make it work. We have a Trader Support Scheme to help those who ship goods to Northern Ireland, we fund veterinarians and health certificates, we do checks in Larne and Belfast. In Northern Ireland we are properly enforcing EU law. We are not giving a talk on whether we are implementing the protocol.

But as we are dealing with the EU legal framework, we have very limited discretion to act in a way that makes sense on the ground in Northern Ireland.

As a result, the expected balance was not found. We are seeing political turmoil Loss of Prime Minister Arlene Foster, UUP leadership change and street protests. And there are real influences on the world in life and livelihoods. We underestimated the impact the protocol had on the movement of goods to Northern Ireland, as some UK suppliers did not ship their products as they needed a lot of the time they needed. We have seen drug manufacturers cut off supplies. And there are fewer options for consumers on supermarket shelves. The NI Retail Consortium has warned that when the grace period ends in October, supermarkets will face “serious and real problems”.

We are working 24 hours a day to resolve these issues by consensus. We have sent several policy documents to the EU to determine solutions. Last week, we submitted a detailed proposal for an equivalency-based veterinary agreement and a scheme for authorized retailers to reduce paperwork and checks. But we had a very back.

We want a vision based on the good interests of everyone in Northern Ireland. This means putting the Good Friday Agreement first and helping more than weakening the political process and institutions. This is fully compatible with a prudent risk-based approach to protecting the single EU market and we accept our share of responsibility as neighbors and exporters.

But it also requires common sense and a risk-based approach for the EU. The EU needs a new playbook for contacting its neighbors, which includes pragmatic solutions between friends, not the imposition of rules on one side and legal purism on the other.

We agreed in 2019, as a huge commitment and for good, to control some commodity movements inside our country and customs territory. If this situation is not to be completely unbearable, we must do so in ways that do not disrupt our daily lives and that respect the identity and interests of all. We continue to work for negotiated solutions that achieve this. But time is running out. We should see progress soon. I hope we can this week.