After months of difficult negotiations, the British government and the European Union have reached an agreement on post-Brexit controls in Northern Ireland, British media reported on Monday (February 27th), citing a British government source.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are meeting in Windsor, near London, for what they say are “final” talks on the controversial dossier. tensions. They are to hold a joint press conference in the afternoon.
Earlier in the day, on Twitter, Ms von der Leyen said she was “looking forward to turning the page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend”, the United Kingdom.
Political blockage
Signed in 2020, the Northern Ireland Protocol, negotiated after Brexit by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, regulates the movement of goods between Northern Ireland, which has the only land border with the European Union, and the rest of the UK. This protocol wanted to avoid a land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland which would risk weakening the peace concluded in 1998 after three bloody decades, while protecting the single European market.
But it posed practical problems by in particular imposing customs controls on goods from Great Britain arriving in Northern Ireland, even if they were intended to remain in the British province.
The protocol has thus generated tensions between the European Union and London, but it has also become an internal problem for Rishi Sunak, who faces opposition from Brexit hardliners and from the unionists of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), fiercely opposed to any questioning of Northern Ireland’s membership of the United Kingdom. The latter refuse any de facto application of European law in the British province and have blocked the functioning of the local executive for a year.
Meeting with the king
Prior to her meeting with Rishi Sunak, Ursula von der Leyen had met the King, Charles III, an interview criticized by some who lamented that the King got embroiled in such contentious political discussions.
“The King is happy to meet any foreign leader if he is visiting the UK and it is the government’s advice that he do so,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement.
