The European Commissioner for Brexit will tell the Brexit Secretary David Frost Northern Ireland Unless he abandons the “unachievable” requirement for the role of the European Court of Justice, he is doomed to fail.
At a meeting in London on Friday, Maroš Šefčovič will warn his British colleague, Lord Frost, that Downing Street needs to “take a step” towards the EU in order to make the talks “meaningful”.
Brussels is increasingly worried that Boris Johnson has decided to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the coming weeks to suspend the post-Brexit arrangements and impose his own vision.
Brussels is preparing a series of retaliatory options until it suspends the trade agreement reached on Christmas Eve last year, while trying to convince Britain of the merits of its approach.
“We believe that the goals set by the UK are unachievable,” said a senior EU official. “The UK’s position is that the role of EU institutions needs to disappear… As long as the UK’s position remains the same, I don’t see what we can do.”
Negotiations on arrangements for the post-Brexit of Northern Ireland have entered the fourth week. One of the exit agreements signed by Johnson keeps Northern Ireland in the single market and draws a customs border in the lower reaches of the Irish Sea to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
In October, the European Union proposed to significantly reduce the number of inspections of goods shipped from the UK to Northern Ireland in recognition of the political and economic chaos caused.
But the UK insists that the protocol needs to be redrafted more fundamentally, including the removal of the European Court of Justice’s role as an arbiter of EU law.
Brussels countered that if the European Court of Justice does not continue to serve as the presiding arbitrator of EU law, Northern Ireland will not be able to maintain single market access.
“The UK wants us to have intensive talks, and we are happy to do so,” an EU official said before Friday’s meeting. “But the UK must take a step towards us to ensure that the talks are meaningful.
“If the UK wants these discussions to succeed, then the major steps we took on October 13th need to be rewarded. Regarding governance and court issues, we have always made it clear that we believe that the goals set by the UK are unachievable.”
Brussels believes that the British approach is too dogmatic, which has raised concerns about the prime minister’s sincerity in seeking a solution.
EU officials pointed out that they are trying to resolve concerns about Northern Ireland’s value-added tax collection. Downing Street complained that the evolution of the EU legal manual applicable to Northern Ireland may put Northern Irish traders at a disadvantage compared to traders in other parts of the UK.
An EU official said: “There is a specific provision in the Protocol that gives the Joint Commission a role to find solutions to the problems arising from the application of the VAT principle under the Protocol in Northern Ireland. It is a subsection of Article 8. One of the models.
“For example, at this point, we said why not use the mechanism specifically provided in the agreement to see how far we can go. However, the UK has never tried to require a completely different approach to VAT, which requires renegotiating the agreement .”
Frost urged the EU to “keep calm” in a speech in the House of Lords on Wednesday. “In my opinion, this negotiation process is not over yet,” he said. “Although we have been talking for nearly four weeks, it is still possible that the negotiations have not been carefully reviewed, including many methods proposed by the United Kingdom.”
