Top EU official warns against changing Northern Ireland Protocol

The vice-president of the European Commission on Friday warned against a renegotiation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

"I will not mince my words. The protocol is not the problem... it is the only solution we have," Maros Sefcovic, the EU's chief Brexit official, said in a speech at Queen's University in Belfast.

Renegotiating it, as the UK government has requested, would bring "instability, uncertainty and unpredictability" to Northern Ireland, he continued.

The leader of the largest unionist party on Thursday warned that the power-sharing government could collapse if the protocol is not changed within weeks.

The protocol lays out rules for Northern Ireland trade and was agreed by the UK and the EU last year as part of the Brexit agreement.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that has a land border with the 27-nation trade bloc.

The deal the two sides struck before Brexit means customs and border checks must be conducted on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.