Well, Gove and EU Vice President Maroš Šefčovič met (I assume it was a virtual meeting) for three hours to go through the problems of the NI protocol and afterwards released a joint statement. You can see it below in the tweet from Šefčovič himself. Essentially, Gove appears to have got none of the demands in his February 3rd letter. More that that he didn't get any solutions "this week" that he called for and said "must" be addressed.
Here's the tweet:
🇪🇺🇬🇧 A constructive meeting with @michaelgove. Set to intensify our joint work on IE/NI Protocol to ensure solutions mutually agreed in Dec are implemented and to address all outstanding issues. Joint Committee to meet no later than 24 Feb.Our statement: https://t.co/QNw8w3zDVt— Maroš Šefčovič🇪🇺 (@MarosSefcovic) February 11, 2021
It was the usual diplomatic flannel about a constructive meeting, working together and so on. It didn't disguise the fact that Gove came away empty handed, a situation we need to get used to pretty quickly.
The truth is that Gove thought he was being clever by highlighting, magnifying and focusing on what he called the EU's "grave error" in what was an administrative mistake, admitted to and corrected in about five hours. What the Cabinet Office minister was doing was covering up his own vast catalogue of arrogant mistakes in negotiating a deal without consulting or listening to the stakeholders impacted by it. It was blame shifting on an industrial scale.
The whole tone of the letter was wrong as can be seen in the RTE report by Tony Connelly:
The European Commission’s move to trigger Article 16 of the Protocol saw the moral high ground shift dramatically to the UK, but then back again - in the eyes of member states - with Michael Gove’s letter to his opposite number Maros Šefčovič, demanding immediate and sweeping changes to the Protocol.
"That letter has been counterproductive," says one EU diplomat. "There probably was a growing willingness to look at the situation in a pragmatic way. But the letter has now got people's backs up. They are more focused on what the British haven't done in terms of their own commitments under the Protocol."
On Wednesday Šefčovič replied by letter, spelling out what those alleged shortcomings were.
Border Control Posts (BCPs) were not operational, nor were they carrying out sufficient physical checks; packages were not properly labelled; goods were entering Northern Ireland without being declared.
The EU was still being denied real time access to the UK’s import clearance system, which in turn was needed for the trusted trader scheme to work.
Worst of all, from an EU point of view, non-compliant consignments were being waved through at Belfast and Larne, even if they were destined for south of the border.
To member states, checking such goods at ports before they enter the single market is the whole point of the Protocol. Thus, they were not in a generous mood.
I have to say this was all entirely predictable. Nobody in the EU who has listened to Gove's lies about Brexit for five years and witnessed the hubris on this side of The Channel and then having an error on their own side, not only pointed out, but built up until it blocked the sunlight out over Brussels could be happy. And all made worse by the fact that the UK government (i.e. Gove) wasn't actually implementing what had been agreed.
Reading Connelly's report it seems the processes GB-NI and NI-GB are indeed starting to settle down as companies 'adapt' to the new realities, "even in the agri food sphere, where there are more onerous requirements."
Connelly claims:
"The conversations we are having with clients, they are largely saying, look, we’re getting on with it," says Simon McAllister, the lead Brexit executive with EY Ireland, who is gathering feedback from as many as 50 companies in the North, mostly in the agri food sector.
"Clients are saying, yes, it was tricky in the first few weeks, yes, we’ve made mistakes, yes, our suppliers from the UK have been - broadly speaking - useless. But we are getting there, and the volumes are moving," he says.
As the road becomes less 'bumpy' so it will be seen to be much longer and more costly than before and this question of 'adapting' will have real world consequences with less trade and diversions to optimise supply chains. The costs of doing business across a border will become a factor that customers and suppliers will take into account. There may be some easements but the frictions will be permanent and unavoidable.
Connelly says the next problem is that the first grace period runs out on 1 April and "a potential collision between veterinary approval for supermarket consignments from GB and unionist identity looms."
Meanwhile, The Telegraph is still fighting the shellfish war and claims the EU Commission did write a letter to Whitehall officials which "appears to show it previously advised that the export of live molluscs from Britain was still possible after Brexit." I have no idea if this is true or not but I should add that other reports say even the UK government isn't claiming that any more so I have no idea what The Telegraph hope to achieve beyond casting the EU in a bad light - which is I assume their objective.
Another fusillade was fired in a Telegraph report that the EU is "poised" to lock the UK out of the EU banking market, according to Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England. Bailey said that Brussels would be "making a mistake" if it refused to grant access for the City, with serious repercussions for ordinary people.
I assume this will become the tone from now on. It will be a continuous moan that the EU are not doing us any favours. Not only did we want to 'take back control' of our own country we also wanted to continue to control the EU27 as well, but are slowly realising in fishing communities and in The City that 'sovereignty' is a double edged sword that cuts both ways.
Or to put it in a way that Johnson would understand, you can have your cake or you can eat it, not both.
