UK ministers need to read the Northern Ireland protocol they signed
Brexit was a British idea. Brexit means border controls. UK ministers should deal with the logical consequences of their own freely chosen policies.
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This commentary appeared first in The Irish Times in response to
The UK鈥檚 European Union negotiator and its secretary of state for Northern Ireland published a remarkable article in The Irish Times聽last week. They complained of what they called the 鈥渋nflexible requirement to treat movement of goods [from Britain] into Northern Ireland, as if they were crossing an EU external frontier, with the full panoply of checks and controls鈥. It appears聽they never read the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol which is part of the Agreement under which the UK withdrew from the EU. For this is precisely what the UK agreed to, in great detail, in the Protocol.
Annex 2 of this Protocol lists the EU laws which are to apply 鈥渋n and to the UK in respect of Northern Ireland鈥. The聽first item on this very long list is Customs Code of the EU. This is a rigorous code with exacting procedures, as the UK knows well. Also listed are EU laws on the collection of trade statistics, product safety, electrical equipment, medical products, food safety and hygiene, GMOs and animal diseases. The list is specific. It refers to each item of EU legislation by its full title.
The UK is fully familiar with all the legislation in the Annex, because the UK, as an EU member state at the time, took part in drafting each one of these laws. It also had a reputation as a country that applied EU laws more conscientiously than most. These controls have to be enforced somewhere. This can be done either at a land border or at a sea border. The UK ministers, writing in The Irish Times, say preventing a hard land border on the island of Ireland remains essential.
So, if the controls are not to be exercised on the land border in Ireland, where do the UK ministers propose to exercise them?
About the Author
Global Europe Program
The Global Europe Program is focused on Europe鈥檚 capabilities, and how it engages on critical global issues.聽 We investigate European approaches to critical global issues. We examine Europe鈥檚 relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Our initiatives include 鈥淯kraine in Europe鈥 鈥 an examination of what it will take to make Ukraine鈥檚 European future a reality.聽 But we also examine the role of NATO, the European Union and the OSCE, Europe鈥檚 energy security, transatlantic trade disputes, and challenges to democracy. The Global Europe Program鈥檚 staff, scholars-in-residence, and Global Fellows participate in seminars, policy study groups, and international conferences to provide analytical recommendations to policy makers and the media. Read more
