First modification:
The European Commission on Wednesday launched new legal action against Britain, accusing London of putting peace in Northern Ireland at risk by trying to review the trade agreement that was signed after Brexit.
“The UK government has tabled legislation confirming its intention to unilaterally break international law,” European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said.
“More specifically, breaking an agreement that protects peace and stability in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“Opening the door to unilaterally changing an international agreement is also a violation of international law. So let’s call things by their name. This is illegal.”
On Monday, the British government introduced legislation to rip out the trade rules that were signed after Brexit for Northern Ireland, in a bid to undo the EU withdrawal treaty it had signed.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Executive insists it is not breaking international law, citing the “need” to act to restore Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions.
But Brussels rejects this argument, and Sefcovic said legal action will be taken, with two new cases joining those the Commission had suspended. The Commission Vice President said the EU would revive a case it launched last year to control the export of certain food products from Britain to Northern Ireland.
“If the UK doesn’t respond within two months, we could take them to the Court of Justice,” he warned.
“Secondly, we are launching two new infractions against the UK,” he said, announcing cases that could bring the British government before the European Court of Justice.
“One for failing to carry out the necessary checks at Northern Ireland border checkpoints ensuring adequate staffing and infrastructure.”
“And another for failing to provide the EU with essential trade statistics for the EU to protect its single market.”
serious danger
The cases brought by the EU do not directly address the proposed British legislation, but instead seek to force Britain to apply existing agreements.
The Johnson government has said it still prefers a negotiated solution with the European Union to reform the Northern Ireland Protocol.
But he accuses Brussels of not engaging with his concerns about control measures for goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland.
Brussels replies that, as Northern Ireland remains in the EU’s single market, European legislation must ultimately apply to goods arriving in the territory.
And Sefcovic says attempts to negotiate a compromise with Britain within the terms of the deal Johnson himself hailed and signed have been met with “radio silence” since February.
The dispute comes at a bad time for the British economy, with inflation at a 40-year high and rising household bills leaving many Britons struggling to make ends meet.
But there are also headwinds in the European Union, warning that the West must not fall for trade in trying to present a united front against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Wednesday’s EU action was “the result of a deliberate strategy by the British government of provocation over partnership.”
“The UK’s reckless decisions this week have forced the EU to respond to a threatened breach of international law with grave consequences.”
Jonathan Jones, former head of the British government’s legal service, scoffed at Number 10’s argument.
Jones resigned after Northern Ireland Minister Brandon Lewis admitted that unilaterally breaking the deal “would break international law in a very specific and limited way”.
“The concept of ‘necessity’ is an extremely high test. It only applies when a state must act to safeguard its essential interests against ‘serious and imminent danger,'” Jones said.
“How is it possible that an agreement voluntarily signed only in 2020, in what the Prime Minister described as a ‘fantastic moment’, is already proving so disastrous as to represent a ‘serious danger’ to the country?”
For its part, the Democratic Unionist Party maintains that the creation of an effective border in the Irish Sea by the protocol endangers the status of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom as a whole.
The pro-British party is boycotting Belfast local government until the deal is scrapped or drastically revised, putting the power-sharing deal underlying the Northern Ireland peace deal at risk.
*With AFP; adapted from its original English version
#takes #legal #action #London #breaching #agreement #Northern #Ireland