For several months now, the Boris Johnson administration has been urging the European Union to renegotiate the provisions of The NI Protocol, which effectively established a customs border between the UK and Northern Ireland to allow free movement of goods between the UK and the Republic. Guarantee Ireland, a member of the European Union. Over time, this will only hurt Irish consumers.
What is the NI Protocol?
Northern Ireland’s modern period of conflict started in the late 1960s and lasted more than three decades. What started as a civil rights movement – Catholics protesting what they saw as discrimination by Northern Ireland’s Protestants -dominated the government and deteriorated into violence with the involvement of paramilitary groups on both sides and the arrival in 1969 of the British Army.
The conflict involved mostly Protestant loyalists who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, against mostly Catholic Republicans, who wished to unite with the Republic of Ireland.
Protestant and Catholic nationalists shared their respective communities’ goals but tended to eschew violence.
The terms of the NI Protocol were negotiated in 2019 and concluded in December 2020. Due to the thirty-year internecine conflict in Northern Ireland, the UK-Irish border has held a special status since that conflict was ended with the Belfast Agreement/Good Friday Agreement 1998.
As part of the Northern Ireland peace process, the border has been largely invisible without any physical barriers or custom checks on its many crossing points; this arrangement was made possible by both countries’ membership in the European Single Market and Customs Union, and their Common Travel area.
After the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, the border in Ireland became the only land border between the UK and the EU.
The EU Single Market and UK international market provisions require certain customs checks and trade controls at their external borders.
The Northern Ireland Protocol is intended to protect the EU Single Market while avoiding the imposition of a “hard border” that might incite a recurrence of conflict and destabilise the relative peace that has held since the end of the Troubles.
Under the protocol, Northern Ireland is formally outside the EU Single Market, but the EU free movement of goods and EU customs union rules still apply.
This ensures that there are no customs checks or controls with Northern Ireland at the border. The protocol has created a de facto customs border down the Irish Sea for customs purposes, separating Northern Ireland from the Island of Great Britain to the disquiet of prominent unionists.
The Ongoing Northern Ireland Protocol Negotiations
After the separation of the UK from the EU, the Northern Ireland Protocol became an important part of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement.
According to the NI Protocol, the UK is officially separate from the EU. But one of the most important goals of the NI Protocol is to prevent a hard border on the Island of Ireland.
With respect to the Northern Ireland Protocol, goods can be imported from Great Britain to the EU under special custom rules.
The British Government published a paper in 2021with the main purpose of replacing the Northern Ireland Protocol with another protocol.
At the end of July, the EU and the UK set up a communal committee for a new decision to end their arguments on the subject. But they were unable to conclude their dispute. Lord Frost, the UK’s co-chair for the joint committee and Minister of State at the Cabinet Office in charge of UK-EU relations, resigned from the UK Government.
Liz Truss MP took the responsibility of assessing the protocol.
In a joint statement, Truss and the EU’s co-chair, Maros Sefcovic, said their first meeting took place in a “cordial atmosphere”. Truss, however, stated that the UK’s position on the protocol had not changed and discussions remained ongoing.
Liz Truss Is Going to Agree with the NI protocol
Liz Truss has agreed to the NI Protocol until the end of February. On Monday, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is going to travel to Brussels to draw up an agreement with the EU on the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland by the end of February.
The two sides have agreed that the window of opportunity for an agreement will close when the campaign starts for the Northern Ireland Assembly election in May.
Maros Sefcovic, the Vice-President of the European Commission for Interinstitutional Relations who will be hosting Truss in Brussels on Monday, told MEPs in a private briefing that there had been a positive tone to his discussion with the foreign secretary at her official country residence last week.
Truss took over responsibility for Brexit issues after David Frost’s resignation in January. She has said that she can reach a good agreement.
Sefcovic said there was as yet no sign of change in the UK’s negotiating position.
Sources said that the commissioner had been “surprised and concerned” that Truss had regurgitated Frost’s demands for a dispute system similar to that in the trade deal, the complete removal of checks on goods from Great Britain destined for Northern Ireland, and a rethink on the current system of EU approval of subsidies, known in Brussels as state aid.
Sefcovic had reiterated that the thorough overhaul of the current protocol, which keeps Northern Ireland in the single market for goods and draws a customs border down the Irish Sea, was not possible.
He told MEPs the EU had also shown it could speed up its approval system for state-aid notifications. However, the negotiations between the two sides are ongoing and developing into an important political issue.
The EU has proposed reducing health and safety checks on meat, plant, and dairy products by half and customs checks by 80%, but Brussels is willing to go further by ensuring that other paperwork could be done via communications to reduce red tape.
EU-UK Relations Improving Due to the Ukraine War
The Ukraine war has positively affected relations between the EU and the UK, who have become closer as a result.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought better unity between the EU and the UK as they currently face new Russian threats. They have decided to eliminate political tensions and reach an agreement on the NI Protocol by removing challenges. The UK has faced an array of economic issues following Brexit. According to government officials, the Ukraine war must not be an obstacle to the NI Protocol, which in itself has become an important economic obstacle for Britain.
Conclusion
As a result of the NI Protocol, Britain and Northern Ireland have faced significant hurdles in their trade ties.
Northern Ireland, as an important part of the United Kingdom, has suffered decades of violence known as the Troubles, a conflict largely between the pro-UK Protestants and pro-secession Catholics.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement achieved compromise by creating a new power-sharing government, facilitating disarmament, and abolishing border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Brexit, with its new trade and border arrangements, has threatened the delicate balance and sparked worries over renewed conflict.
