The UK says Brussels is trying to pressure Biden to “exploit” Biden’s visit

Britain and the EU on Wednesday will try to rescue a plan to calm post-Brexit tensions in Northern Ireland, following days of threats and allegations.

Lord David Frost, the UK’s Brexit minister, and Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission’s vice-president, will formally meet to try to resolve the post-Brexit trade border problems between Britain and Northern Ireland.

Prior to the meeting, British officials claimed he was trying to “exploit” Brussels immediate arrival US President Joe Biden to land in talks on the Northern Ireland protocol to put pressure on Frost in the UK.

Frost said Tuesday that there is “little time” for the new arrangements to work. The protocol is part of the Brexit 2019 withdrawal agreement agreed by the UK with Brussels, which seeks to avoid the harsh border with Ireland by creating new controls on trade across the Irish Sea.

Biden arrived in Britain on Thursday G7 summit in Cornwall and will hold talks with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The White House has already confirmed that Biden will move up Northern Ireland at the meeting.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen discussed disagreements over Northern Ireland in a call on Wednesday and agreed to hold more talks on the sidelines of the G7. Von der Leyen warned that he was “deeply concerned” about the state of the British’s efforts to reach agreements with the EU.

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin on Tuesday called on both sides to “depoliticise” the protocol and treat the disagreements as a technical trade issue to be overcome.

“It is important to resolve these issues and build trust between the European Union and the UK,” he said. “Otherwise, we will have constant problems and problems.”

For its part, Brussels warned EU diplomats at a closed-door meeting on Monday that Britain could pedal over disagreements this week, then act much more aggressively after the G7 and US meetings.

David [Frost] it’s actually pretty moderate when you compare it to PM. Boris is very tough on all of this

One diplomat told the FT that he feared Britain could make a “full-fledged commitment” to the problems in Northern Ireland, including “unilateral measures” to dilute the protocol.

Frost at the beginning of the week accused “legal purism” when it proclaims how the EU should apply the protocol. The EU has said that Britain is not implementing the basic parts of the new arrangements, such as building and properly supplying border checkpoints and sharing data with Brussels.

Johnson’s allies believe that Brussels wants to blame Frost, Britain’s first chief negotiator, for the bad atmosphere surrounding the talks.

“The man is not playing the ball but it will not work,” said a senior British official. “David is pretty moderate when you compare him to the PM. Boris takes a very hard line in the face of all that.”

Work on the back has been intensified by what Frost called “practical solutions” to smooth border controls on UK Northern Ireland trade. The minister was due to have a private dinner with Sefcovic in London on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the two will address a first meeting of the new cooperation council – set up to oversee the EU-UK trade agreement – with a separate session to examine the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol.

If the EU has it he stressed the protocol is doing a great job of finding solutions to the irritants thrown at it – on Monday it handed out papers to EU diplomats including VAT on second-hand cars, charges on steel imports, barriers to importing British-made medicines and veterinary medicine. checks.

The UK sent veterinary agreements to Brussels last week with proposals to ease controls on goods passing through Britain to Northern Ireland after Brexit – the EU and the UK are still a long way from how that arrangement works.

“The first of these challenges is the detrimental impact of the protocol on land in Northern Ireland,” said Frost, who claimed that new controls at Ireland’s maritime trade border have been disrupted in exchange for products such as refrigerated meat and medicines.

Citing Sefcovic tips If the EU could pay with UK export tariffs if the UK did not stay in favor of the protocol negotiation, Frost said “more threats of legal action and trade retaliation” would be helpful.

Along with the Northern Ireland trade rules, the two sides will also discuss it Recent clashes over fishing rights around Jersey, While the UK reaffirms its participation in a number of EU programs, such as Horizon Europe in science and research funding.