Johnson is urged to abandon the unilateral path and agree with the EU on the reform of the Brexit Protocol
The governments of Germany and Ireland criticize the “unilateralism” concocted by the Executive of Boris Johnson to solve the difficulties of implementing the Brexit agreement for Northern Ireland in these “difficult times when Russia is engaged in a ruthless war in Ukraine” . “The European Union and the United Kingdom must remain united, as partners with shared values and a commitment to defend and respect the international order based on rules“, declare in a joint statement the Foreign Ministers of both countries, the German Annalena Baerbock and the Irishman Simon Coveney.
The foreign ministers reproach the lack of good faith of the London Government in its negotiations with the EU and warn that “there is no legal or political justification for unilaterally breaking an international agreement signed two years ago”. They refer to the processing in the Parliament of Westminster of a bill that, in its current wording, eliminates sections of the agreed Northern Ireland Protocol and gives carte blanche to ministers to alter other mechanisms in the future.
The legislative text was approved in second reading, last week, with a majority limited to 74 votes, including unionist seats. More than 70 Conservatives – former Prime Minister Theresa May and former Northern Ireland ministers among them – abstained after harshly criticizing Johnson’s plan.
rectify faults
In their joint intervention, published by the Sunday ‘The Observer’, Baerbock and Coveney emphasize the EU’s proposals to rectify technical failures and bureaucratic obstacles detected in the implementation of the Protocol. “We remain willing to be flexible and creative,” they write, before urging London to “step back from the one-sided approach and demonstrate the same pragmatism and willingness to compromise” as the EU.
Liz Truss, Foreign Minister with responsibility for Brexit, justified the bill as a “necessary” action, which would violate the Brexit treaty but protect the previous Good Friday Agreement, the engine of the end of terrorism on the island. The conservative government agrees with the unionist leadership in that the Protocol breaks with the principle of consensus sealed in the peace pacts and incorporates obstacles in East-West relations, that is, between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Brexit has created a commercial customs in the Irish Sea.
Baerbock and Coveney maintain instead that it “completely respects the spirit and letter of the Good Friday Agreement” and note that 52 of the 90 members of Belfast Parliament elected in May “support the Protocol”. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the main protestant force in the province, threatens to boycott the formation of self-government as long as the commitments accepted by London to leave the EU are not abrogated.
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