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Britain’s relations with the EU are at risk of becoming increasingly fragile as frustrations over the UK’s refusal to fully implement itsBrexi obligations in Northern Ireland, warned a senior official in Brussels.
Maros Sefcovic, a key person in relations with the UK, said he wanted the two sides to agree on a joint “roadmap” in early June that would provide a clear timetable for resolving issues related to the deployment of new trade agreements for the region.
While the EU shows “creativity and pragmatism” in the talks, the same cannot be said about the UK, he told the blog’s Brexit commissioner at the Financial Times, revealing that he had warned his British counterpart David Frost of the growing impatience of EU member states.
“Honestly, all of these solutions come from our side,” Sefcovic said. “It is clear that if we do not see positive developments, the atmosphere would be more acidic, [making it] more difficult to seek political compromises. The political environment would be much more difficult. “
Crispy encounter
Sefcovic noted a proposal for a meeting of the EU-UK joint committee on Brexit the week of June 7 as the time to agree on a “joint approach” to resolving differences over the functioning of Northern Ireland’s trade border. EU-UK officials have been working on this plan since April.
Both parties are concerned about an escalation of tensions in Northern Ireland before the so-called marching season, when the Protestant Order of the region holds traditional parades.
The Northern Ireland Protocol to the 2019 EU EU withdrawal treaty created a UK-administered trade and veterinary border in the Irish Sea to avoid the need for north-south controls on the island of ‘Ireland. But this has proved highly controversial in the unionist community in the region, contributing to a wave of unrest in April.
Sefcovic said the EU has been working hard to resolve the protocol-related annoyances that have emerged since the new EU-UK trade agreement came into force on January 1, ranging from barriers to guide dog movement between Northern Ireland and Britain to tariff-related issues. on steel, VAT on used cars and a more widespread problem in relation to food safety controls.
However, “from the UK side we still don’t have the basic answers,” said Sefcovic, who noted the EU’s requests for real-time access to IT systems to control trade, as well as the need for clear UK plans to deploy and staff border border checkpoints.
“Increased impatience” with the UK
He warned Frost in a call last week that there was “greater impatience in the EU [to see] the solutions that the United Kingdom will now present to fulfill its obligations under the protocol.
In contrast, the UK believes the EU is adamant about the need for controls on products traveling from Britain to Northern Ireland.
“The EU continues to treat the regulatory border in the Irish Sea as if it were like any other EU external border, although there is a very limited risk to the single market,” a UK government spokesman said.
“This translates into a reduction in the availability and choice on supermarket shelves, the cancellation of deliveries, the sale of retailers and interference with the movements of pets and parcels. This sustained disruption is undermining the protocol as a whole, “the spokesman added.
Sefcovic said the EU needed to ensure the “integrity” of its single market by ensuring that products went through proper control, but reiterated an offer for the UK to have a Swiss style veterinary agreement that would eliminate the need for food safety controls, a step that Britain rejects as it would involve continuous alignment with EU rules. And he added that Brussels was working hard to find practical solutions to trade irritants, and said: “Honestly, I don’t know what else we could do.”
Next month’s crucial joint committee meeting is likely to take place again with another EU-UK trade-focused meeting and shortly before Joe Biden plays in the UK for a G7 summit. It has been speculated in EU capitals that the US president’s visit to Europe will give him a chance to move forward on Northern Ireland’s trade agreements.
Legal threat
Sefcovic said Britain needed to realize that Brussels was also a “political space” and that it could not stay in a situation of telling EU governments “look, here are the 10 things I have solved for in the UK “, just to answer ‘zero’. , nothing ”, when the capitals asked him what he got in return.
Brussels is also up and running legal action against the United Kingdom after unilaterally extending some grace periods of the normal requirements for companies moving goods between Britain and Northern Ireland. Sefcovic said Britain’s written response to Brussels’ complaints had been “disappointing” and that the EU could have no choice but to escalate the dispute if “we did not hear anything more constructive at the joint committee meeting”. June.
This would mean going to the last procedural step before moving Britain to the European Court of Justice.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has chosen Sefcovic, who has been EU Commissioner since Slovakia since 2009, to lead Brussels’ work on implementing agreements with the UK after of the departure this year of the Brexit chief negotiator Michel barnier.
It is hard work, as EU capitals are increasingly angry that parts of the new relationship are not collapsing. This includes not only Northern Ireland, but also fishing rights and work permits for Central and Eastern Europeans.
Sefcovic said there had been anger in the EU after it was revealed that some EU citizens were being held in immigrant detention centers after arriving in the UK without visas. “You can imagine how my phone rings, how many letters I receive,” he said, adding that since then there had been productive contact with the UK Home Office.
Sefcovic said he already hoped to have been working with London on a positive agenda to ensure Northern Ireland capitalizes on its unique status in both the EU’s single market for goods and part of the UK market.
The protocol “should be transformed into a great opportunity for Northern Ireland,” he said.
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