Context:

• K. want to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol

What is Britain proposing?

• The Britain administration informed the European Union (EU) that it wants to renegotiate the Brexit deal’s Northern Ireland Protocol.
• The EU has ruled out a renegotiation, but says it is open to “practical, flexible solutions”.

What’s behind Northern Ireland Protocol?

• The sovereign territory of the U.K. includes England, Wales, Scotland, and what is known as Northern Ireland, which occupies a portion of the island of Ireland.
• Ireland has long seen tensions between the Catholics/Nationalists, who want a unified Irish republic, and the Protestants/Unionists, who are loyal to the British crown.
• The long and violent conflict between the two sides — known as The Troubles — ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, whose fragile peace rests on a principle that Brexit has now disrupted: there won’t be a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
• Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. that shares a land border with the EU, as Ireland is an EU member-state.
• Brexit took the K. out of the EU’s customs union.
• It created a problem whose solution needed two seemingly contradictory outcomes: preserving the sanctity of the EU’s single market, as well as that of the U.K.’s domestic market.
• The Protocol’s solution was to avoid a customs check on the island of Ireland. Instead, it envisaged a ‘sea border’ at the ports of Northern Island.
• Certain goods — meant only for Northern Ireland but not for Ireland, which falls within the EU market — would undergo checks here before entering the island.

Why does the U.K. want changes?

• The creation of an economic barrier between the British mainland and Northern Ireland has affected the free flow of goods between the two.
• Businesses in Northern Ireland have been complaining about cumbersome paperwork and compliance costs.
• Some British companies would like to avoid the hassle altogether by withdrawing supplies to Northern Ireland.
• Apart from the economic irritants, Brexit seems to have resurrected old sensitivities about political identity, with the Unionists questioning why they alone — among U.K. citizens — should suffer differential treatment.
• The S. — which helped broker the 1998 Agreement — has warned the U.K. against disturbing the fragile peace over Brexit.

What is Britain proposing?

• The U.K. is telling the EU, “Trust us to protect your single market.”
• It has proposed five changes to the Protocol:
  • no more checks on goods moving from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland where a business self-certifies that its products are not meant for use in the EU;
  • a dual regime wherein goods made to either U.K. standards or EU standards can circulate anywhere in Ireland; removal of the need for any ‘export declarations’ on goods going from Northern Ireland to Great Britain;
  • rewriting of the clause in Article 10 that requires the U.K. subsidies that affect trade with Northern Ireland to comply with EU rules; and finally,
  • ending the right of EU institutions such as the European Court of Justice to enforce the Protocol.

What lies ahead?

• These proposals would be unacceptable to the EU, as they outsource the enforcement of the Protocol — and the European customs union — entirely to the U.K.
• Only last year that the U.K. signed the Protocol, and given that nothing has changed since then, the EU will insist that the U.K. honour the deal.
• The two sides will certainly seek a solution through talks.
• But if talks fail, the U.K. could invoke Article 16, which allows the unilateral suspension of a part of the agreement in extreme circumstances.
• In such a scenario, the economic barrier might shift to a land border on the island, which would basically shred the 1998 Agreement, and the peace that came with it.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/explained-why-does-the-uk-want-to-renegotiate-the-northern-ireland-protocol/article35516473.ece

Download PDF