Return of N Ireland power-sharing not ‘guaranteed’ even if EU-UK trade deal struck


A deal to resolve a row between the UK and EU over post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland “still may not be enough” to restore the region’s power-sharing government, warned Ireland’s prime minister after talks in Belfast with local parties on Thursday.

Leo Varadkar’s visit a day after talks between UK foreign secretary James Cleverly’s talks and regional leaders, was part of a rapidly intensifying diplomatic push to try to reach an agreement before the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement in April.

UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Ireland’s foreign minister and the UK secretary of state for the region all descended on Belfast for discussions on Thursday.

Regional political institutions have been paralysed for months after the Democratic Unionist Party, the region’s largest pro-UK political force, pulled out, over its objections to the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.

The DUP is demanding an end both to the Irish Sea customs border for goods entering the region from Britain and to any oversight of the arrangements by the European Court of Justice.

A tentative deal on data-sharing was agreed by London and Brussels this week and was hailed as the first tangible breakthrough in the acrimonious dispute.

Representatives from London and Brussels will meet again on Monday to assess progress and next steps, but Chris Heaton-Harris, the UK secretary of state for Northern Ireland, dismissed as “speculation” on Thursday suggestions that negotiators were finally preparing for intensive talks — dubbed the negotiating ‘tunnel’ — on substantive issues around trade in the region.

Micheál Martin, Ireland’s foreign minister who was also in Belfast for talks with Heaton-Harris, welcomed progress but said the issues outstanding “are very challenging and complex”.

London on Thursday published draft legislation to set up agrifood border posts in Northern Irish ports for goods entering the region from Britain. In the event of a deal, they could be used to separate and process goods destined to go on to the Republic of Ireland or remain in the region.

Varadkar, who helped push the protocol over the line in talks in 2019 with Boris Johnson, British prime minister at the time, said the EU was ready to make “the changes that are necessary”. However, he acknowledged that any deal struck by London and Brussels may still prove unpalatable to the DUP.

An agreement “could unlock the possibility of re-establishing the executive and the assembly, but it’s not a guarantee,” he told reporters.

Starmer on Thursday described the Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of conflict and was co-negotiated by his party’s prime minister Tony Blair as Labour’s “proudest achievement”. All parties are keen to resolve the impasse by its 25th anniversary in April.

Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the pro-Irish unity Sinn Féin party, urged all sides to grasp the opportunity of a deal “and in a common-sense way work their way methodically through [the issues] and come back with common-sense agreements . . . This is not rocket science.”



Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *