UK, EU hold meeting in London in bid to calm post-Brexit trade turbulence

Nearly six weeks after the UK exited the European Union, UK’s Brexit minister Michael Gove and European Commission’s Vice-President Maros Sefcovic convened a meeting in London late Thursday over Northern Ireland protocol. Calling the NI protocol “the only way forward”, the bloc’s VP travelled to the UK to hold a dialogue on a post-Brexit trade deal to resolve the lingering issues for effective trade and commerce moving forward. Stressing, that the two sides had to lead efforts for a quick resolution to the trade turbulence that now centres around Northern Ireland protocol, the two representatives agreed that the sensitivity of Northern Ireland's status was underscored earlier when the EU threatened to ban COVID-19 vaccine shipments to Northern Ireland. 

EU chief Arlene Foster, on Thursday, also voiced concerns over Brexit tensions, as European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic insisted that the NI protocol will protect the Good Friday Agreement. Meanwhile, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen lamented the triggering of Article 16, calling it a mistake that now overrides the part of the protocol which prevents a hard border. According to sources of the Associated Press, the meeting was scheduled after Northern Ireland authorities suspended veterinary checks and withdrew border staff from ports for several days this month, as EU-UK struggle to find a trade balance with respect to Northern Ireland. British goods, transported to Northern Ireland have been imposed with severe checks as North shares a border with EU member-state Ireland, and UK abandoned the EU's economic structures on Dec. 31.

[The Head of the Task Force for Relations with the UK Michel Barnier waits for the arrival of European Council President Charles Michel ahead of a meeting at the European Council building in Brussels. Credit: AP]

Read: UK-EU Talks Aim To Defuse Brexit Tensions Over N Ireland

Read: EU's Coronavirus Vaccine Row Reignites Brexit's Dispute Over Irish Border

“Situation has never been easy in Ireland and everything is complex,” Michel Barnier, the bloc's chief negotiator told European Business Summit on February 11. “I recommend personally to everybody on both sides to be responsible and take care,” he added. 

'Full implementation' of NI protocol

While UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, Jamie Davies, told a presser that the EU’s move caused ‘shock and anger’, British, Irish and Northern Ireland politicians expressed angst as Davies insisted that there was “a need to take urgent steps to restore confidence as a result.” The UK, overall, sought a more relaxed border approach on part of the EU. In a letter to UK’s Gove ahead of their meeting in London Thursday, Sefcovic stressed the importance of the full implementation of the NI protocol as “the only way forward”. Furthermore, he said that the two EU’s shared objective is to “work tirelessly in order to make the protocol work”. ‘The protocol is the solution agreed by the UK and the EU to these challenges: it is the only way to protect the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement, preserving peace and stability and avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland,’ Gove wrote in the letter. 

Read: UK Seafood Trucks Protest At Parliament Over Brexit Red Tape

Read: Brexit Leader To Head Mississippi Public Policy Center