Notwithstanding the fact that the Irish Sea border was supposed to arrive on 1 January 2021, it will only apply for the first time in relation to vet medicines from 1 January 2026.
The Windsor Framework subjects Northern Ireland to laws made by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers in 300 different areas that, from the beginning of next year, will cover vet medicines.
The EU veterinary medicines legislation, along with all the other EU legislation that is applied to Northern Ireland, is law made by those elected to represent the people of France, Bulgaria, Estonia, the Republic of Ireland and Spain etc, not the people of Northern Ireland. Taken as a whole its purpose is to progressively move us out of the UK Internal Market for Goods and into an All-Ireland Internal Market for Goods. The constitutional implications of this are enormous such that securing a common internal market for goods is regarded as obtaining the foundation of modern statehood so that when it is acquired, it is said by some that you gain ‘economic nationality’.
The application of this Windsor Framework project to vet medicines means that in just a month and a half it will stop being legal for UK citizens in Northern Ireland to buy vet medicines from the rest of our own country unless the purchaser is a company with an EU authorisation to conduct batch checks on the medicines in the EU.
In this context, over the last five years great efforts have been exerted to reframe Northern Ireland’s supply chains, replacing our integration with the wider UK economy and internal market for vet medicines, with our integration in an all-Ireland, EU internal market for vet medicines.
The Government readily acknowledges that, while ‘progress’ has been made in removing us from the UK internal market for vet medicines and placing us instead in an all-Ireland/EU internal market for vet medicines, there is still a real risk of a shortage of some medicines for animals living in Northern Ireland from 1 January 2026 and especially from February, March, April onwards.
In an attempt to try to be ready for this eventuality, the Government has announced the establishment of:
I) ‘The Veterinary Medicines Health Situation Scheme’ and
II) A so-called ‘Veterinary Medicines Internal Market Scheme.’
However, very little detail has been published about how these schemes will work in practice and given that we are now just a one and a half months from their introduction, I have this week written to the Government and asked them to publish detailed information about how these schemes will operate on the ground.
It is not clear that these mechanisms, designed to deal with exceptional circumstances, will have the capacity to deal with the level of demands that may well be placed upon them over the course of 2026.
Moreover, the threat arising from the imposition of the Vet Medicines Irish Sea border from 1 January does not just raise major concerns about whether we will be able to get all the medicines our animals need. It also raises huge questions about the price of medicines, as we are subject to the absurd situation of being cut off from the normal retail supply chains within our own home economy.
In this regard, there are two presenting issues that I have raised with the Government:
In the first instance, there is the concern that vet medicines will be more expensive because of more limited supply.
In the second instance, there is a real concern about a reduction in choice of pack sizes. If you only have a few animals, you will want the freedom to buy medicines in small quantities and will effectively be subject to serious inflation if you find that you can only buy the drug you want in a pack size that is far larger than you need.
This gives rise to serious business concerns:
If farmers in Northern Ireland can’t get all the medicines they need, or can only get them at higher prices than across the rest of the UK, how can they hope to compete in the UK marketplace?
This is a massive issue for Northern Ireland given the particular importance of our agri-food sector, not to mention the fact that we are in any event a community of animal lovers, carefully guarding the health of all animals, not least our pets.
It is wholly wrong that the EU should disrespect the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom in this manner and completely contrary to their own interests, placing animals in Northern Ireland at greater risk of being without the medicines they require, with all that this means for the health of animals along the border in the Republic.
If it had been looking for a sensible solution, the EU would have been open to recognising the border where it is and in developing a trusted trader scheme for the movement of goods like milk into the Republic. They would have far more to lose than us if they sought to resist this sensible solution out of a slavish commitment to single market ideology for the simple reason that they turn our milk into cheese and then sell it back to us at significantly higher prices. If Mr Benn had not persuaded Parliament to undermine the then government by taking ‘no deal’ off the table, they could have offered a trusted trader scheme or a hard border and then our agri-foods industry would not be in this position.
As we approach the 1 January, the EU has demonstrated very eloquently that just as it is happy to undermine our citizenship, taking from us the right to be represented in the making of the laws to which we are subject in 300 areas, so to it is also content to place the welfare of our animals in jeopardy.
The big question in all of this is when will the United Kingdom regain a self-respecting government that is neither prepared to trade the votes of some of its citizens nor the health of some of its animals, in seeking to negotiate a deal with the EU.
Less Than two Months Until the Arrival of the Windsor Framework Irish Sea Border on Vet Medicines
