UK, EU at ‘impasse’ over Northern Ireland Protocol

By Karim El-Bar

LONDON (AA) – James Cleverly, the UK’s minister for Europe and North America, said Thursday that Britain and the European Union were at an impasse over negotiations regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The protocol essentially drew a trade border in the Irish Sea, meaning Northern Ireland effectively remained in the EU’s single market and customs union while Great Britain exited. This state of affairs has angered Northern Irish unionists, who see it as undermining their place in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Britain now wants to renegotiate the protocol, which is part of the Brexit deal it negotiated with the EU. The UK has previously warned that it could trigger Article 16, which allows it to disapply parts of the Brexit deal, but the EU has warned in response that this would strain relations with Brussels.

Cleverly made his comments to a parliamentary committee, saying: “The truth is that we have come to something of an impasse, and I don’t think that’s through a lack of goodwill, and I think it’s more through what we regard in the UK as an overly limited (EU) negotiating mandate.”

“The situation as we now see it is not working. It is not doing what it was meant to do, which is to protect equally north-south and east-west trade, and that, by extension, is causing community tensions in Northern Ireland.

“We’re looking at a range of options about what we can do to ease these tensions,” he added.