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The British government has tried to downplay the importance of planned legislation affecting the Northern Ireland protocol, insisting that it remains committed to implementing the Brexit withdrawal agreement in its entirety.
A bill to be published on Wednesday will include provisions to circumscribe the protocol’s influence on Britain’s state aid policy, and will make clear that goods moving from Northern Ireland to Britain will not have to be accompanied by a export declaration. A finance bill in the coming weeks will say that British ministers will decide which goods moved from Britain to Northern Ireland are considered “at risk” of entering the EU single market.
Downing Street said Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove will continue to negotiate the details of the protocol’s implementation in a joint committee with European Commission Vice President Maros Sevcovic. But Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said the government was legislating to ensure there would be “no inadvertent consequences” if all the details were not agreed upon by the end of the year.
“The Northern Ireland Protocol was designed as a way to implement the needs of our exit from the EU in a way that worked for Northern Ireland and in particular to uphold the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday), the achievements of the Peace Process and the delicate balance between the interests of both communities.
“It is explicitly dependent on the consent of the people of Northern Ireland for its continued existence. As we implement the Northern Ireland Protocol, this overriding need must be taken into account, ”the spokesperson said.
“We are therefore taking limited and reasonable steps to clarify specific elements of the Northern Ireland Protocol in national law to remove any ambiguity and to ensure that the government can always honor its commitments to the people of Northern Ireland. These limited clarifications meet the Government’s commitments in the General Election Manifesto, which stated: ‘We will ensure that Northern Ireland businesses and producers have unrestricted access to the rest of the UK and that, in the implementation of our Brexit agreement, we maintain and strengthen the integrity and proper functioning of our domestic market. “This was reiterated in the command document published in May.”
Property controls
The British government’s command document on the protocol ruled out forcing Northern Ireland companies to complete export declarations for goods moving to Britain and Johnson has repeatedly stated that no controls would be carried out on goods moving in the opposite direction. The British government now recognizes that controls will be required for the transfer of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, but the new legislation will state that it will be a British minister who determines which goods fall into the category requiring controls.
Under Article 10 of the protocol, Britain is required to notify the EU of State aid decisions “in respect of measures affecting trade between Northern Ireland and the Union”.
Trade experts say the commitment is so broad that EU state aid rules could apply to subsidies to British companies not based in Northern Ireland and to UK-wide measures such as the licensing scheme. by coronavirus.
But the new legislation will state that EU state aid rules will continue to apply only to Northern Ireland and will make clear that they cannot be used to limit British government action in other parts of the UK.
Talks between Britain’s chief negotiator David Frost and his EU counterpart Michel Barnier resumed in London on Tuesday after Johnson said that if a deal is not reached by mid-October, he will withdraw from the conversations. Downing Street insisted, however, that Britain’s commitment to the Northern Ireland protocol will persist regardless of the outcome of the trade negotiation and that talks on its implementation are going well.
“The government is fully committed, as it has always been, to implement the Northern Ireland Protocol in good faith. If we do not take these steps, we face the prospect of year-end legal confusion and potentially extremely damaging breaches, including tariffs on products moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. We are making small clarifications in extremely specific areas to ensure that, while we implement the protocol, we are doing so in a way that allows ministers to always defend and protect the Good Friday peace agreement, “said a British government spokesman.
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