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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – New UK proposals to avoid lengthy border controls on the island of Ireland after Brexit are "a step in the right direction" and "find a possible compromise", Reuters told a source from the European Union close to the negotiations.
FILE PHOTO: A Brexit sign is seen between the Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and Londonderry in Northern Ireland, in the border village of Muff, Ireland, on February 1, 2018. REUTERS / Clodagh Kilcoyne
The Brexit talks are entering into a frenetic fortnight with the aim of concluding a divorce agreement between the European Union and Britain and drawing a plan for future relations.
Avoiding the construction of a complex border between Ireland and the provinces of Northern Ireland after Brexit is the main potential obstacle to reaching an agreement.
Britain wants to regulate the border through a broad agreement on post-Brexit trade relations with the EU.
According to the bloc, an urgent solution – or "backstop" – is needed in case these enlarged trade negotiations fail or take longer after the departure of Britain from the European Union next March and the transition period to the status quo that ends at the end of 2020.
Both parties prepare concessions on Irish support.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Thursday that Dublin was unaware of the fact that Britain had submitted its new formal "support" proposal.
Diplomats and EU officials also said that they had not seen any new formal written text from London. But the comment suggesting that the EU would engage in the new proposal taking shape in London has sent the pound up against the dollar.
BORDERS NUANCES
Diplomats and EU officials described the new emerging proposal that Britain would accept an indefinite safeguard solution, a missing element in the previous London proposal, rejected by the remaining 27 Member States last June.
But Britain stood by its line, namely that if a firewall was triggered, the entire United Kingdom would remain in a customs union with the EU. This would mean having the same external tariff on some goods, unlike the EU and Turkey.
According to the British proposal described by EU sources, this would remove the need for customs controls on goods and agriculture on the island of Ireland.
The EU had already had a problem with this project because it feared that Britain would use Northern Ireland's special access to the bloc's single market to import products that would not have to comply with high standards. from the EU and could therefore be sold cheaper.
For other types of controls, regulatory controls, Great Britain would agree to carry out simplified and light controls on goods from the British mainland to Northern Ireland, which would be made as far as possible away from the United Kingdom. border, according to EU sources. emerging proposal.
This in turn is a difficult task for Britain, where the government of Prime Minister Theresa May relies on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, which fiercely opposes the divergent rules in force on its territory in relation to the rest of the United Kingdom.
"It's a step in the right direction, it helps to find a compromise," a European source close to the talks told Reuters.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar will travel to Brussels on Thursday to meet officials from the European Union.
Report by Gabriela Baczynska, additional report by Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Edited by Janet Lawrence
