(Bloomberg) —
The European Union is drafting proposals to address British concerns about trade flows between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. to be presented as early as next week.
The EU will offer greater flexibility in shipping pharmaceuticals into Northern Ireland and the process for inspecting food products while simplifying customs checks and providing a bigger role for local institutions, according to a senior EU official.
Maros Sefcovic, the top EU negotiator with the U.K., broadly confirmed those areas Thursday in remarks at an event hosted by the Institute of International and European Affairs, saying the bloc is trying to address difficulties that people in Northern Ireland are facing after Brexit.
“That means long-term solution in the food and plant safety,” Sefcovic, a vice president of the European Commission, said. “I heard businesses ask for further trade facilitations in the area of customs. And I also heard a lot about the need for Northern Irish political institutions and other stakeholders to be properly heard. One issue of vital importance to me occurred throughout my visit is finding a solution for the continued supply of medicines to Northern Ireland.”
That’s still a long way short of U.K. demands that the EU scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol, which governs trade flows between Britain, Northern Ireland and the Irish republic in the post-Brexit period. The EU has said that it won’t renegotiate the protocol, but is willing to make adjustments to ease bottlenecks between Britain and Northern Ireland.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to customs check between the two parts of his country as part of his Brexit accord with the EU so that most of the U.K. could be free of EU regulations without creating a hard border on the island of Ireland. But since signing the deal, Johnson has refused to implement key elements of the protocol and has unilaterally extended the grace period designed to ease the transition on two occasions.
Unless the EU backs down in the next few weeks, the U.K. is threatening to invoke Article 16 of the protocol, which gives either side the right to suspend parts of the agreement if it causes “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties.” In that instance, the EU would have the right to take reciprocal measures to safeguard the integrity of the single market and that could disrupt the broader trading relationship between the two sides.
Sefcovic said he expects intense negotiations with the U.K. through the rest of the month and into November.
“I think it’s in the best interest of both of us that we will try to find a reasonable solution before the ends of the year into next year,” he said.
Another European diplomat said the EU could challenge the U.K.’s right to invoke Article 16 under the current circumstances and it could lead to a drawn-out legal tussle.
Read More: U.K. Delays Brexit Border Checks on EU Food as Shortages Hit
The European Commission considers that the U.K. hasn’t done enough to demonstrate it intends to honor its obligations under the protocol. While European officials have been given access to the computer systems which register goods entering Northern Ireland, the U.K. hasn’t made progress on building the physical infrastructure needed for the border checks.
EU officials are also due to meet their British counterparts Monday and Tuesday to discuss the future status of Gibraltar, the official said. Spain and the U.K. agreed in December to move the EU border to Gibraltar’s port and airport to avoid disrupting the daily flow of workers into and out of the territory from Spain.
The presence of Spanish security forces on Gibraltarian territory has proved a sticking point and the EU member states have suggested that European border agents police the frontier as well.
(Updates with Sefcovic remarks starting in the third paragraph)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
