11 May 2017

Financial Times: EU’s Barnier: Ireland’s interest will be the Union’s interest

Addressing a joint session of the two houses of the Irish parliament, Michel Barnier said a border that divides the island, and Ireland’s economic and historical ties with the UK would be taken into account in the Brexit negotiations, which he will lead when they get under way later this year.

“Today, in front of these two houses, I want to reassure the Irish people: in this negotiation, Ireland’s interest will be the Union’s interest,” Mr Barnier told MPs and senators. “We are in this negotiation together, and a united EU will be here for you.”

Mr Barnier has become the focus of Ireland’s hopes that a Brexit deal can be achieved that will not result in a hard border with Northern Ireland, will not disrupt the Good Friday peace agreement, will protect the almost century-old common travel and work arrangements between Ireland and Britain, and will result in minimal disruption to bilateral trade, which runs to €1.2bn a week.

But he also sought to dampen expectations that there would be no material change to the status and nature of the Irish border, which has mostly disappeared for practical purposes over the past 20 years.

“We have a duty to speak the truth – the UK’s departure from the EU will have consequences,” he said. “Customs controls are part of EU border management. They protect the single market. They protect our food safety and our standards.”

Earlier, Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, warned that Brexit and the prospect that it could change the nature of the border would undermine the fragile peace and power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland. “We cannot have a border like we had before,” the Taoiseach told a meeting of the European People’s party, the centre-right grouping in the European parliament that includes Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic party. [...]

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Related article: Michel Barnier confronts Ireland’s border problem

[...]But while the political will to retain an invisible border is strong, it is unclear how negotiators will address the traffic of people, goods and services between the UK and Ireland. 

One issue that poses less difficulty than might be expected is the movement of people between Northern Ireland and the republic. 

Although the UK will restrict the movement of EU citizens to Britain, they are likely to do so through a work permit system to be managed at the workplace. This means there will be little need for passport or other controls on the frontier between Northern Ireland and the republic. “Obviously, if the UK institutes a visa regime for holiday travellers or short-term workers that would create a huge problem,” says one EU official. “But that does not look like the direction London wants to go.”

The bigger problem is how London and Dublin will manage the flow of goods and services between north and south. Britain has already made clear that it is leaving Europe’s Customs Union. If the border is to remain frictionless, this will require an immense effort by the UK, Ireland and EU states to computerise customs declarations, introducing whatever bureaucracy is needed in, or close to, factories. The logistical challenges could be huge. 

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