[ad_1]
Brexit “is not something to celebrate,” declared Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney after the UK formally severed ties with the EU, as it warned of trade disruptions due to the new bureaucracy.
In stark contrast to Boris Johnson’s upbeat characterization of the country’s future after the end of the transition period at 11pm on Thursday night, Coveney described the UK’s departure as a source of regret.
Calling it the end of an era, Coveney said trade across the Irish Sea would be “disrupted by a lot more checks and declarations, red tape and paperwork, costs and delays.”
But on Friday, when the first ferries arrived in the Republic of Ireland from Great Britain under new post-Brexit trade rules, events seemed to go smoothly. In Dublin, the Irish Ferries ship Ulysses docked at 5.55am with a dozen trucks on board, after traveling from Holyhead in Wales, and there were no delays as the cargo trailers cleared customs.
Meanwhile, the first ferries also entered and left the Port of Dover without incident, although it is believed that the true test is yet to come, as the New Year is usually quiet and importers had been stocking products before the end of the period of transition.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today show on Friday, Coveney said: “For 48 years the UK has really been a central part of the European Union. And that is now firmly ending with the end of the transition period … For all of us in Ireland, that is not something to celebrate. Our relationship with the UK is so close, so integrated, so interwoven, if you will, political, economic and family.
“My own personal history is so determined by the Anglo-Irish relationship, and that’s the same for many other Irish people, so we’re seeing the UK move in a different direction on its own, chasing the notion of trying to go back – Finding their sovereignty and … that is something we regret but, of course, we accepted it because it was a democratic decision ”.
Despite Downing Street securing a trade deal with Brussels on Christmas Eve, which was subsequently sped up in parliament on Wednesday when MPs passed a bill making the deal into UK law, Coveney warned that there would still be business problems. “Now we are going to see the 80,000 million euros [£72bn] value of trade across the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland interrupted by so many more checks and declarations, and red tape and paperwork, and costs and delays, ”he said.
“That is the inevitable consequence, unfortunately, even with a trade agreement that I think everyone is very relieved was signed on Christmas Eve.”
However, he said there would be no additional controls on goods between Northern Ireland, which remains in the EU single market, in addition to applying EU customs rules at its ports, and the Republic of Ireland. The newly introduced controls on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from the mainland UK would be “as limited as possible,” he said.
“In terms of controls of goods, the objective of the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland linked to Brexit is to maintain an economy of all Ireland in terms of movement of goods as it is today,” he said. “The only checks will be on goods coming from the UK to Northern Ireland, and those checks will be as limited as possible to protect the movement of goods and services within the UK as a whole.”
Britain’s first ferry operating under the terms of Northern Ireland’s trade protocol docked in Belfast on Friday: the Stena Line ship arrived in Belfast harbor from Cairnryan as scheduled at 1:45 pm.
In France, the president, Emmanuel Macron, used his New Year’s Eve message to target Brexit, calling it a product of “lies and false promises.”
Meanwhile, in an article for the Daily Telegraph on the occasion of the new year, Johnson wrote: “Despite many predictions of failure and constant suggestions that the talks should be abandoned, we got a great new deal with our friends and neighbors. Europeans “.
More than four years after the Brexit referendum, Johnson also said the country had “regained control of our money, our laws and our waters.”
He added: “And yet it is also the essence of this treaty that it provides certainty for UK business and industry, because it means that we can continue to trade freely, with zero tariffs and zero quotas, with the EU.”
He described it as a “great victory for both sides of the Channel”, and continued: “For us, it means the end of the bitter disputes over ‘Europe’ that have plagued our politics for so long. It means the end of that uncomfortable feeling that We were constantly being asked to sign up for the details of a project, a giant federal merger of states, that we really didn’t believe in and hadn’t really negotiated. “
