UK and EU strike deal on Northern Ireland protocol
BORIS Johnson’s victory in the 2019 race to become prime minister of the United Kingdom was attributed in part to his campaign slogan: “Get Brexit done”. More than three years later, one of his successors, Rishi Sunak, took a significant step toward making good on that pledge.
The British government and the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union (EU), have reached an agreement intended to resolve one of the thorniest legacies of Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc: the trade status of Northern Ireland.
The new agreement, which has been named the “Windsor Framework”, includes a series of new measures for what is known as the Northern Ireland protocol. Both sides hope this will resolve the challenges that went unaddressed in earlier deals.
Northern Ireland is part of the UK, but it shares a land border with Ireland, a member of the EU – the bloc that the UK has left. This has created a sticking point for successive British prime ministers since Brexit was approved in 2016.
Negotiators have struggled to find a way to allow goods to move smoothly between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, without threatening the open border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. That border has a significance that goes far beyond trade.
The stakes are high. Some in Brussels spoke of a threat to the integrity of the EU’s single economic market; some in London and Belfast warned that the coherence of the UK was at stake; others were concerned about the fragility of peace in a region where decades of sectarian violence left thousands dead.
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The initial result was the Northern Ireland protocol, but there was unhappiness with it from almost the moment it took effect in 2021. The renegotiated deal is an attempt at resolving at least some of those concerns.
US President Joe Biden had earlier made it clear that he wanted a new agreement before April, when celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement will take place. That deal helped end decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland known as “the Troubles”.
What is the Northern Ireland protocol?
While the latest accord sounds like the title of a spy thriller, it is actually a dry legal text that will not likely be found on most reading lists.
The frontier between Northern Ireland and Ireland is contested. Parts of it were fortified in the decades of violence during the Troubles. But customs checks on the island ended after both Britain and Ireland joined the forerunner of the EU, and other signs of division that remained along the open border faded after the Good Friday peace deal of 1998.
Nobody wants checkpoints back, but when Britain left the EU, Johnson insisted on leaving its customs union and its single market, which allows goods to flow freely across European borders.
The original protocol set out a plan to deal with this situation. It did so by effectively leaving Northern Ireland half inside the European system (and its giant market), and half inside the British one. It sounded neat – until everyone tried to make it work.
The withdrawal agreement came into effect at the start of 2021, but there were complaints from all sides: Britain, the EU, Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Why didn’t Britain like the original protocol?
The plan meant more checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from mainland Britain, effectively creating a border down the Irish Sea and dividing the UK. Some British companies stopped supplying stores in Northern Ireland, blaming the added paperwork.
This enraged some lawmakers in Johnson’s Conservative Party and inflamed sentiment in Northern Ireland, where some objected to anything that would effectively set the region apart from the rest of the UK. For the sake of comparison, they might argue, it would be as if new trade rules required border checks for goods sent to California from the rest of the US.
Some Brexit supporters also viewed the protocol as a means for the EU to retain power over a part of the UK. This was a suspicion reflected in Britain’s desire to remove any role in the region for the European Court of Justice, the bloc’s top court. Meanwhile, to many of Northern Ireland’s pro-British unionists, many of whom are Protestant, it feels as though their identity is under threat.
Given all this, Sunak had to tread carefully. Furthermore, his grip on his party was shaky, with pro-Brexit hardliners among Conservative members sceptical about whether he had won enough concessions.
The sentiment was shared by members of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. Some actually wanted Sunak to stick with a proposed law that would give his government the right to overrule parts of the protocol unilaterally. That law had already passed several stages of parliamentary approval.
Sunak was left with little room to manoeuvre. He had to be mindful to not set off a rebellion from his own lawmakers, or resignations from members of his cabinet, while remaining cognisant that angering the EU could lead to a trade war.
Analysts say that Sunak, as prime minister, would not have to bring the agreement to a vote because what is being negotiated are changes to the operation of a treaty, rather than its substance.
However, responding to calls for lawmakers to have their say, he said that parliament would get a chance to vote on the new deal, a move designed to underscore its political legitimacy.
Why was the EU taking a hard line?
The bloc initially dug in its heels, not only because Johnson accepted the protocol, but also because he negotiated it and pushed it through his parliament. With Johnson now out of power, the EU has seemed more willing to engage with Sunak, who has tried hard to build bridges.
Officials in Brussels have accepted that the protocol has its flaws, but there is a limit to how far they are willing to go, because EU leaders believe that the bloc’s existential interests are at risk. If Brussels cannot control what enters its single market, they argue, it could threaten the building blocks of European integration.
Was anyone in Northern Ireland satisfied with the protocol?
Following last May’s regional government elections in Northern Ireland, the majority of lawmakers now represent parties that largely want to keep the protocol, albeit with some improvements. That is because the protocol was designed to prevent the reintroduction of checks on goods at the politically sensitive land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
A return of border checks would likely destabilise the peace process, which is underpinned by the Good Friday Agreement and has, among other things, allowed the border to remain open even after Brexit. It would particularly upset Sinn Fein, the biggest party after the recent election.
As a party that campaigns for Irish unity, it is hostile to any structures that appear to divide the island.
Some companies in Northern Ireland also benefited from the original protocol, because it allowed them to sell their goods across Europe’s huge internal market and also to export to mainland Britain.
But so far, both the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein have expressed some level of cautious optimism about the new Windsor agreement. Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and a critical voice in the debate, was non-committal but not negative about the deal. Speaking in Parliament, he said that “significant progress has been secured”, but that “there remain key issues of concern”. The detailed text will be assessed by the party to see if it matches its tests, he added.
What does the new agreement look like?
Although some Unionist politicians in Northern Ireland wanted to rip up the protocol completely, that was never going to happen. Instead, the British government looked for ways to reduce the bureaucracy and to lower trade barriers for exporters to Northern Ireland, all of which were laid out in the Windsor Framework announced on Monday (Feb 27).
Although the full details of the deal are still sparse, one key change announced by Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is the introduction of “green” and “red” lanes for goods arriving in Northern Ireland.
There will be no routine controls on goods passing through a “green” lane designed for trusted traders, whose products will not travel beyond Northern Ireland. The “red” lane is intended for goods destined for Ireland – within Europe’s single market – that will be checked.
Sunak said the agreement would not eliminate the role of the European Court of Justice in determining trade disputes. But he noted that the deal would give Northern Ireland’s politicians an “emergency brake” for any new or updated European legislation.
The prime minister also said the new measure would give lawmakers in the devolved regional government in Northern Ireland “a powerful new safeguard based on cross-community consent”. He added that the agreement would allow the British government – and not the EU – to decide key value-added tax and excise measures in Northern Ireland, for example on alcohol duty.
Later, while speaking in front of parliament, Sunak said the mechanism, also called the “Stormont brake”, would allow Northern Ireland’s elected assembly to oppose new EU goods laws subject to support from at least 30 members from two parties. If met, that would then allow Westminster to veto the measures. NYTIMES
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