Brussels and London must settle how to implement border checks in Irish Sea or risk souring trade negotiations
Even as the UK and EU hold intensive talks on their future relationship, the two sides are only beginning to grapple with the complexity of implementing the first part of Brexit: Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement signed in Brussels last October.
The “divorce deal”, which ran to more than 500 pages, enabled the UK’s orderly exit from the bloc by settling Britain’s exit bill, guaranteeing citizens’ rights and preventing the return of a hard border in Ireland. Much of the implementation work centres on the solution found for Ireland.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has made clear that future-relationship talks will stall if the deal on customs checks and other controls is not honoured in full.
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Matters could come to a head in June, when the EU and UK review progress. The withdrawal agreement needs to be an operable reality by the end of this year when Britain’s post-Brexit transition period expires.
What’s the difficulty and why does it matter?
The EU and UK have fundamentally different interpretations of the way the withdrawal agreement’s protocol on Northern Ireland should be implemented. The divorce deal creates a unique legal situation: the province will remain part of the UK’s customs territory, but subject to EU rules on customs, animal health, state aid and VAT.
The agreement places a trade border in the Irish Sea: EU rules and procedures will be applied, but administered by UK officials. But the protocol leaves crucial questions up to a joint committee of EU and UK officials to resolve.
These include how precisely to determine which goods should be deemed to be at risk of travelling on to the EU, and so face EU tariffs, as well as the thorny issue of how to ensure Brussels can supervise how well Britain is applying the rules.
How far apart are the two sides?
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