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Updated October 13th, 2021 at 07:46 IST

Brexit row: UK, EU lock horns in trade war over Northern Ireland (NI) protocol

Britain's Brexit minister David Frost gave a revolting speech about the NI protocol, asserting that the EU "doesn't always look like it wants us to succeed".

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
Brexit
IMAGE: AP | Image:self
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After Brexit Minister Lord Frost proposed an entirely fresh protocol to replace the existing Northern Ireland Protocol, the Brexit, EU, and Britain were once again at loggerheads about the Brexit trade deal, just a year after the threats and missed deadlines that sealed the deal between the 27-nation bloc and Britain. On Tuesday, Britain's Brexit minister David Frost gave a revolting speech about the NI protocol, asserting that the EU "doesn't always look like it wants us to succeed" or "get back to constructive working together.” Frost stated that the Brexit divorce deal was the sole alternate to fixing a very "fractious relationship” between the UK and the bloc, warning that UK will “push an emergency override button” on Brexit trade negotiations if the terms it laid out weren’t agreed by the EU. 

"We constantly face generalized accusations that we can't be trusted and that we aren't a reasonable international actor—a response to EU claims that the UK is seeking to renege on the legally binding treaty that it negotiated and signed,” Frost was quoted as saying during his Lisbon address by the Associated Press. 

ECJ role in overseeing key part of Brexit deal is a red line, says Brussels

Tensions have mounted over the European Commission judges role in overseeing a key part of the Brexit deal, which Brussels states is a “red line” but Frost has been renewing calls to scrap it. The two sides tangled in a trade war over the UK’s demands of “rewriting” the Brexit deal’s controversial Northern Ireland protocol that it says has served as a major hindrance and failing to deliver on some of its core objectives to minimize disruption. The UK also published a Command Paper asserting that it was seeking to negotiate significant changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol that are needed to achieve a sustainable ‘new balance’ and place the UK-EU relationship on a stable footing. 

Amendments to the Brexit deal NI protocol is the “only way to ensure protection for all dimensions of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement,” the UK government has asserted. British officials are asking the EU to “respect” Northern Ireland’s integral place in the UK’s internal market, stressing that while Britain has tried to operate the Protocol, the problems have only been “significant and growing”. 

The UK warned the EU of triggering Article 16 after Northern Ireland's first minister Simon Coveney called the protocol an "incredible act of hostility” on part of the EU. The fight also includes COVID vaccine supplies, which had earlier prompted the EU to implement the "nuclear" option of invoking Article 16, although the latter changed its direction following backlash. The NI Protocol was agreed to avoid the trade barriers and checkpoints for the goods and cargoes arriving from the UK, and resolve the customs and immigration issues at the border in the island of Ireland between the EU and UK and rest of Ireland [ROI] and ensure the integrity of the EU's single market for goods. 

'Concerns not new,' says UK; EU refuses to budge on renegotiation

The European Commission has remained hardened in its stance, telling Britain that it will not scrap the oversight of the protocol by the European Court of Justice, while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and UK Brexit minister Frost have said it was the need of the hour as a key part of smooth implementation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Taking the contentious trade barb to the microblogging Twitter, Frost launched a scathing attack on EU saying, the UK’s demand to remove the oversight of the ECJ was “not new”, and that “We [UK] set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper. The problem is that too few people [EU officials] did not seem to have listened.”

The EU reminded the UK of Brexit chief Maros Sefcovic’s statement, indicating that there was “no way” that the EU was renegotiating the protocol, triggering Britain even more. “I find it hard to see how Northern Ireland would keep access to the single market without oversight from the ECJ,” Sefcovic told a web conference as controversy riled in the last few weeks. Frost, meanwhile, this week asked to enact the Trade and Cooperation Agreement to resolve the disputes that would mean international arbitration.

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Published October 13th, 2021 at 07:46 IST

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