Tony Connelly at RTE has posted a longish thread on Twitter with details of the current thinking in Brussels about the ongoing problems of the Irish protocol. He is one of the best informed journalists and to me it all sounds very plausible. The EU are suggesting some sort of choreographed process over the next few weeks, which would mean by early June a joint document would be published setting out the details of how the protocol will be implemented.
The first step is for the UK to formally respond to the EU's legal action by May 15. At this point he says what "flexibilities" or easements are actually possible will be known. This would kickstart technical talks, followed by political ones culminating in an agreement by June.
2/ An EU official today sketched out a choreography which seems encouraging, ie, the UK replies to the EU's legal action by May 15, at which point it will be clear what "flexibilities" within the Protocol are achieveable and what aren't
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) May 3, 2021
It's not clear if whatever flexibilities are found and agreed will be enough to satisfy loyalist in Ulster. That is the big open question. I suspect they are not looking for a bit of finessing around the edges or some 'barnacles' to be 'sandpapered' off as Johnson said the other day. The EU are not taking a very much softer line because the official Connelly spoke to says any easements would be piecemeal and if the UK were looking for "sweeping changes" then we would need to align with EU food safety rules.
This always strikes me as slightly surreal position since the two sides are perfectly aligned now and it would only take a bit of law on our part to ensure we continued following the rules we've been following for years anyway. But no matter.
The EU suspect we simply want the freedom to allow US food products in at some future time but it could perhaps be done temporarily, at least until the UK concludes free trade deals of its own, so the EU think.
These putative talks would be an addition to the agreement last December between Gove and Sefcovic which filled in a bit more detail and provided a 3 month 'grace period.' The EU argument is that following that agreement, where the UK agreed to align with EU SPS rules for the duration of grace period, which London then unilaterally extended, (now the subject of legal action), why not continue such temporary alignment for a couple of years? It makes sense.
Unfortunately, it does not sit well with the Brexiteer mindset.
I have heard a lot of talk from the pro-Brexit side that the EU is being too fussy and should take a 'risk based' approach to food products which might 'leak' across the border into Ireland. The EU are firmly against this idea because:
"The senior official also had some uncompromising words on the idea that the EU would agree to take a more risk-based approach to applying the Protocol, ie does a particular food product from GB-NI really pose an existential risk to the single mkt or consumer health?
"The official said: 'The fundamental point is that [EU] SPS legislation in itself is about evaluating how much risk you're prepared to accept, and that in setting its SPS rules the EU has made a choice as regards the kinds of risks it sees exists... and how to manage them',"
“The Protocol... enshrines that legislation in its annexes and requires that the UK implement them.”
So, the EU seem to be sticking to a hardish line that the burdens of the Protocol are a direct consequence of Brexit and the UK's subsequent and deliberate choice to have a very distant trading relationship with the EU. If we really want to ease the Protocol, then we have the option of a "structural" change - in other words alignment with EU rules.
Once again, we see the EU baulk at the idea of the UK having its cake and eating it. Brexiteers want to have an open, frictionless, invisible border but with different regulations and standards applying on each side. It is the delusion that will not die.
So, the choice of ministers is to have tiny piecemeal changes here and there - in which case the EU will expect the UK to fully implement what it has signed up to - or we fully align.
Connelly has also spoke to a UK source who "suggests London will continue to press for equivalence, rather than alignment with a focus on helping businesses adapt by increasing vet capacity to certify exports as well as providing financial support worth £ms through the SME Brexit Support Fund."
This is the usual position taken by UK ministers. Equivalence will never happen and they must know it. It would open a Pandora's box with many other countries who export foodstuffs to the EU expecting the same thing. Equivalence would make a mockery of the EU SPS regulations since other producers in third countries wouldn't need to apply them and could follow national rules.
It would mean the EU keeping an eye on every third country for changes in rules or failures to enforce existing rules. It is totally impossible.
An interesting point that Connelly touches on. The UK is saying it will not accept 'dynamic' alignment "in perpetuity" which might herald some sort of short term concession and he says the EU suggestion yesterday also appears to be something temporary, at least until the UK concludes FTA's elsewhere, which could take several years.
It would also force the British government to come clean in future when a new trade deal is signed and admit that standards are being lowered. They would also need to explain to NI unionists why SPS checks are being re-introduced at the sea border. Might not be too easy in Belfast.
Connelly says it all looks like a "hardball preamble to a more intense phase of technical, then political talks."
So we may be on the way to some sort of settlement but this would be the third remember. We had the NI protocol in October 2019, the Gove/Sefcovic agreement of December 2020 and now this new one. And Lord knows how many more in the future, all to solve a problem that almost no Brexiteer even acknowledged existed in 2016.
That's Brexit isn't it?
