Financial Times: EU has refined planned backstop solution for UK and Irish border: Barnier

10 October 2018

The EU’s Brexit negotiator has set out his plans for “dedramatising” negotiations with the UK on the Irish border, insisting Brussels’ proposals would minimise any burdens for businesses and that he is open to the idea of a customs union with Britain.

Michel Barnier said on Wednesday that the EU had refined its planned “backstop” solution for Ireland, identifying solutions that would avoid a hard customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Mr Barnier said that Brussels was sticking to the broad thrust of its backstop plan, which would see Northern Ireland stay in the EU single market and customs union even once the UK has left, but he stressed that the proposals did not pose any territorial or constitutional threat to the UK.

“The UK wants to leave, and will leave the single market and the customs union — this means that there must be checks on goods travelling between EU and UK, and those checks do not exist today”, Mr Barnier told a conference of business leaders in Brussels, adding that “the EU proposes to carry out these checks in the least intrusive way possible”. [...]

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Speech by Michel Barnier at the closing session of Eurochambre's European Parliament of Enterprises 2018


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