Should this be seen as a sign that the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) are on the verge of concluding their negotiations on the post-Brexit trade relationship they will initiate, from 1er January 2021? Even if the statements on both sides of the Channel do not allow us to be particularly optimistic, London and Brussels nevertheless managed to agree on Tuesday, December 8, on how a crucial part of the divorce agreement will be applied. one year ago. An essential step for the current discussions to have a chance to succeed.
After the British decision to leave the EU, it was then a question of defining the conditions for the withdrawal from London, whatever the outcome of the upcoming negotiations on their future relationship. The Northern Irish question proved to be the thorniest. Brussels absolutely wanted to guarantee the North-Irish peace agreements (which ended the civil war in Northern Ireland in 1998) by avoiding the reintroduction of a border between the two Ireland, while protecting the European internal market, including is still part of the Republic of Ireland, but no longer part of Northern Ireland. A real headache, which the two parties have solved with great difficulty by deciding to establish a customs border in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, within the framework of the “Northern Irish protocol”.
London and Brussels had yet to agree on the modalities of customs controls for goods arriving from Great Britain to Belfast (or Larne, the other major port of Ulster). Knowing that the British government and the DUP, the great Northern Irish Unionist party (loyal to the United Kingdom), demanded as little “paperwork” as possible. While the Europeans, for their part, demanded rigorous controls for goods coming from the United Kingdom and destined for the Republic of Ireland – therefore the EU. A “joint committee” chaired by British Minister of State Michael Gove and Vice-President of the European Commission Maros Sefcovic, got down to work in early 2020.
Remove a major obstacle
Its laborious work was further slowed down when in September Boris Johnson questioned the terms of the Northern Irish protocol in a so-called “internal market” bill. Some clauses of this text were supposed to “protect the integrity” of the United Kingdom but in reality violated the terms of the divorce treaty signed at the end of 2019 with Brussels. The Prime Minister planned to violate it again in another text – the Taxation Bill – scheduled to be presented in the House of Commons on Wednesday, December 9. Unacceptable for the European Commission, which launched an infringement procedure against London and refused to enter into any other agreement until the United Kingdom had withdrawn the contentious clauses.
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