This file was at the origin of the blocking of the institutions of the province but also of eddies within the conservative majority in London.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
After months of difficult negotiations, the British government and the European Union have arrived at an agreement on post-Brexit controls in Northern Ireland, British media reported on Monday, February 27, citing a British government source.
British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, are gathered in Windsor, near London, for what they presented as “final” discussions on this file which arouses strong tensions. They must hold a common press conference in the afternoon.
Earlier in the day, on Twitte R, m me von der Leyen had said that he “can’t wait to turn the page and open a new chapter with our partner and friend”, the United Kingdom.
Political blockage
Signed in 2020, the North Irish protocol, negotiated after Brexit by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, regulates the circulation of goods between Northern Ireland, which has the only land border with the European Union , and the rest of the United Kingdom. This protocol wanted to avoid a terrestrial border between Ireland and Northern Ireland which could weaken peace concluded in 1998 after three bloody decades, while protecting the European single market.
But he posed practical problems by noting in particular customs controls on Great Britain goods arriving in Northern Ireland, even if they were intended to stay in the British province.
The protocol thus generated tensions between the European Union and London, but it has also become an internal problem for Rishi Sunak, confronted with the opposition of the hard Brexit and that of the Unionists of Democratic Unionist Party (Dup ), fiercely opposed to any questioning of the belonging of Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom. The latter refuse any de facto application of European law in the British province and block the functioning of the local executive for a year.
Meeting with King
Before his meeting with Rishi Sunak, Ursula von der Leyen had met the king, Charles III, an interview criticized by some who deplore that the king finds himself involved in such controversial political discussions.
“The king is happy to meet any foreign leader if he is visiting the United Kingdom and it is the government’s council that he does it,” Buckingham Palace reacted in a press release .