EU leaders will put pressure on Boris Johnson over Northern Ireland at the G7

Boris Johnson will face renewed pressure from European leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall to resolve post-Brexit tensions in Northern Ireland after British Prime Minister refused to accept a plan to cut border controls in the UK. region in line with EU food standards.

The administration of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, has tried to reassure Johnson that the acceptance of reflecting the Brussels rules on food and animal controls would not hinder the prospects of a future trade agreement between the Kingdom United and the United States. But Downing Street insists the idea is not initial.

Biden and Johnson discussed Northern Ireland’s trade rules in their first face-to-face meeting Thursday before the three-day G7 summit starting Friday.

The UK leader told the BBC that Biden did not sound the alarm over his stance on the issue at Thursday’s meeting.

But Johnson’s meetings with European leaders at the summit may not be as diplomatic. He will meet on Saturday with European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Johnson will also hold bilateral meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He met Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi on Friday.

Macron, considered in London as a harder line the question of Northern Ireland, warned the G7 that “it would not be” to reopen the Brexit agreement.

“I don’t think it’s serious to want to review in July what we ended up after years of debate and work in December,” the French president told a news conference on Thursday. “This is not a problem between the UK and France, but a problem between Europeans and the UK.”

Although Bake was told by Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, that he had “deep” concerns about the state of the peace process in Northern Ireland, the issue did not dominate the president’s meeting with Johnson, according to said UK aides.

Instead, the British Prime Minister said that the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States was not only “special” but “indestructible”, and described Biden’s arrival on the world stage – after four years of presidency of Donald Trump – as “a breath of fresh air.”

The United States has encouraged Johnson and the EU to reach a compromise on how best to implement the Northern Ireland protocol, the part of Johnson’s agreement on Brexit that covers the border issue in the region.

The protocol leaves an open border on the island of Ireland (the Republic of Ireland is part of the EU), but establishes controls on certain products that move from Britain to Northern Ireland in case they end up crossing the single market. the EU.

Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic has once again pressured Britain this week to accept a “Swiss” model in which the UK aligns with Brussels’ food and agricultural controls to drastically reduce the need for border inspections in the ports of the Irish Sea.

The United States has pushed Britain to accept this proposal. Yael Lempert, Britain’s top diplomat in Britain, suggested this month to British Brexit minister David Frost that Washington agree to such an agreement.

He said Biden would make sure it “would not negatively affect the chances of reaching a free trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom,” according to a British note from the meeting published by the Times. Downing Street has not denied the existence of the note, but U.S. officials insist the June 3 exchange was not “intensified” in tone.

Britain has argued that it needs flexibility to set its own rules, particularly in the sensitive area of ​​agriculture, to secure trade agreements with countries with different standards, particularly the US.

But Johnson’s allies said Britain could never accept that it would be bound by Brussels rules. “It’s a matter of principles,” one said. “We’re not going this route.”

British officials insisted that if Britain applied EU agricultural rules, it would complicate a trade deal with the United States given the power of the US agricultural lobby in the US Congress.

But in any case, Biden has shown little enthusiasm for an initial trade deal with the UK. “It was barely discussed,” said an official who reported on the president’s talks with Johnson. “It’s not a priority for him.”