UK, EU strike new Northern Ireland post-Brexit trade deal
Agreement reached after high-level talks between UK PM Rishi Sunak and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have struck a new post-Brexit deal aimed at resolving their long-running trade dispute over Northern Ireland.
The agreement came after high-level talks on Monday in Windsor, England, between British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, EU and UK government sources confirmed.
The deal seeks to resolve tensions caused by the 2020 post-Brexit arrangements governing Northern Ireland, a British province, and its open border with EU member state Ireland.
It remains to be seen, though, whether it will go far enough to end the political deadlock in Northern Ireland and satisfy critics in Britain and the province.
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party has boycotted the region’s power-sharing government until the trade arrangements are substantially changed, shaking its decades-old peace process.
The new agreement is expected to ease physical checks on goods flowing from the remainder of the UK to Northern Ireland, and give the latter’s lawmakers a say over the EU rules it has to implement under the complicated terms of Britain’s exit from the bloc.
Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from London, said the deal was in effect “an update” to the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol.
“There are new provisions that will run alongside it [the protocol],” Hull said.
“We haven’t seen the text of the deal yet, but leaks indicate that it will ease the passage of trade from the UK mainland into Northern Ireland for goods not destined to go any further than that,” he added.
“And Northern Ireland, it is believed, will be given the final say on any new rules that are developed over time within the EU’s Single Market for goods that would eventually apply to them.”
Sunak is due to make a statement to the House of Commons on the agreement later on Monday.
A meeting between von der Leyen and King Charles III at Windsor Castle is also planned. The meeting is likely to touch on a variety of issues including climate change and the war in Ukraine.