Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is having further talks with European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefcovic on lifting trade barriers between Northern Ireland and Britain.
UK to Resume Talks With EU in Hopes of Breakthrough on Northern Ireland
It comes as ex-DUP leader Arlene Foster warns in The Sun today on Sunday that the protocol undermines the Belfast Agreement, signed on Good Friday 1998 – which secured peace in Northern Ireland .
She called for his replacement to protect the deal and restore power sharing to Stormont.
The ruling executive in Northern Ireland has not met since February 2022, when Paul Givan of the DUP quit as first minister.
The DUP hates the NI protocol for erecting trade barriers between Britain and Northern Ireland.
The party insists the protocol must be scrapped before joining the power-sharing at Stormont.
Sources close to the talks with the EU say the “mood music” is good.
It is hoped that the UK and EU could soon enter the “tunnel” phase of the talks.
It involves negotiations so secret that neither side makes any public comment about them.
“It made a real difference” – by Arlene Foster, former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, left, US Senator George Mitchell and Tony Blair after signing the peace accord in 1998Credit: PA
Thanks to deconcentration and local administration, we were able to make a real difference.
But we have to get back to that positivity.
We have no real government in Northern Ireland at the moment.
Parliament is no longer sitting and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris, set a deadline on Thursday to settle it.
There is no prospect of that happening, so he will have to call an election or extend the deadline.
But there will be enormous pressure to get devolution operational before the anniversary of the Belfast deal in April.
It would be great to regain devolution – but only if Northern Ireland is fully part of the UK.
The agreement is very clear that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom until the people of Northern Ireland decide otherwise.
According to the polls, there is no indication that they do this.
The Northern Ireland Protocol, which was agreed after Brexit, was meant to protect the Belfast Agreement.
But in fact what he did was cause great damage to the deal and we only really started to recognize that since the collapse of devolution in Northern Ireland.
At least the new Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, has acknowledged that mistakes were made in drawing up the protocol.
News that the EU and UK have agreed to share computer data with Brussels on trade across the Irish Sea is hailed as a breakthrough.
But it’s not. It is simply an agreement on the technical sharing of information.
In the meantime, I’m working with Together UK.
It is an organization that believes the UK is much better and stronger if England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland work together.
I want Northern Ireland to play its part in the UK and realize the benefits of being in a Union.
So we’re going to engage with people across the UK and ask this Monty Python question: what has Britain done for you?
The answer? It made us much stronger on the world stage.
This article is originally published on news-24.fr
April will mark the 25th anniversary of the historic Belfast Agreement, signed on Good Friday 1998.
During this time we have made Northern Ireland a safe and stable place for people to invest and work. It is a good place to live, to go to school.