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The EU is pushing to reopen Brexit talks with the UK in an effort to end the bitter dispute over Northern Ireland a week after it formally took legal action against the government.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister has indicated that the EU is willing to show some flexibility despite the UK’s recent decision to unilaterally delay the implementation of the special agreements for Northern Ireland, leading to the threat of legal action. .
Simon Coveney told RTE that there had been “some swings” between the two sides in recent weeks, and that if London provided a roadmap of how it plans to proceed, the EU could consider flexibilities, including extensions to grace periods.
“I think certainly the EU side wants to start a process again, so that both sides are talking to each other,” he said.
He spoke in Brussels after meeting with the Vice-President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, co-chair of the joint EU-UK committee.
His comments indicate a desire on the part of the EU to ease tensions with the UK over the alleged violation of the Northern Ireland protocol that Boris Johnson signed in January last year.
EU sources revealed last week that in a December side deal with the UK to allow grace periods for controls on goods crossing the Irish Sea, the UK had agreed to provide a roadmap revealing the steps and “milestones” for the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol.
But Brussels said the roadmap was never delivered.
Coveney said it should have included details on the completion of border checkpoints at the ports of Larne and Belfast and the provision of real-time data on goods entering NI from the UK.
He said that if these two points were addressed, the EU commission “would then be open to seeking more flexibility and more pragmatism in terms of some of the difficult elements of the [Northern Ireland] protocol from an implementation point of view ”.
The EU launched infringement proceedings against the UK over Brexit last week, the second time in six months. The UK has one month to formally respond.
