Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen through the Cop27 summit at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Picture date: Monday November 7, 2022.Â
Steve Reigate | Reuters
LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet within the U.K. on Monday for final talks on a deal to resolve the Northern Ireland Protocol, a key sticking point within the post-Brexit trading arrangement.
In a joint statement Sunday, Sunak and von der Leyen said that they had “agreed to proceed their work in person towards shared, practical solutions for the range of complex challenges across the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland.”
The U.K. could have left the European Union on Jan. 31, 2020, however the Northern Ireland Protocol has sparked persistent disagreement ever since. This a part of the Brexit deal mandates checks on some goods that travel to Northern Ireland from the remaining of the U.K. — with the brand new negotiations aimed toward easing these rules.
Unionist parties in Northern Ireland — which is a component of the U.K, unlike its neighbor Ireland, which is a component of the EU — have argued that the checks place an efficient border within the Irish Sea. The Protocol has also been criticized for jeopardizing the Good Friday Agreement — a long-standing peace deal that brought an end to 3 a long time of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
Sunak’s government has sought amendments to the deal signed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has led calls from the hardline Eurosceptic wing inside the ruling Conservative Party to tear up the deal he himself negotiated.
Breaking from predecessors Johnson and Liz Truss, Sunak has taken a less combative approach to engagement with the EU within the hope of reaching a resolution on key issues surrounding Northern Ireland by easing checks on goods travelling across the Irish Sea.
Nonetheless, he might want to persuade his own party to vote any prospective deal through parliament.
Meanwhile, the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since Feb. 2022 after the Democratic Unionist Party resigned in protest on the Northern Ireland Protocol. The loyalist party renewed warnings over the weekend that it could not be strong-armed into accepting a deal that didn’t meet its “red lines.”
