The British government was about to ask the European Commission on Wednesday 3 February to extend the grace period for Northern Ireland. This will allow for more flexible health checks and other checks between this part of the island and the rest of the UK.
Minister Michael Gove wrote a letter to this effect on 2 February to Maroš Šefčovič, the Vice President for Interinstitutional Relations, with whom he was due to meet on Wednesday afternoon under the framework of the Joint Committee. The British minister, making reference to the tensions of the last few days over inspection officers in several Northern Irish ports, has requested that the grace period for these checks be extended until 2023 – especially in respect of supermarkets and their suppliers – as opposed to an initial period of 3 months. It also calls for an extension of the current interim arrangement on medicines until 2023.
The Northern Ireland Protocol, which is intended to avoid re-establishing physical checks on the island, has therefore moved these checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain for anything that arrives on the island from there, or anything that leaves for Great Britain. The protocol had been accepted and tied up by Boris Johnson in 2019, but the security incidents of the previous few days have provided arguments to opponents of this protocol, including the DUP Unionist Party, who are once again denouncing this arrangement that came into force on 1 February, 2020.
In his letter, Michael Gove also makes reference to the big mistake made by Mrs von der Leyen's cabinet, which, for a few hours on 29 January, triggered Article 16 of the protocol concerning vaccine exports between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The minister began his letter by emphasising the extent to which this gesture has been badly perceived, thereby adding to the difficulties in implementing a protocol that is already complex in nature.
Gove had, in any case, intended to reach an agreement over extended grace period as early as this week, according to British media reports.
At the time of going to press, the outcome of this discussion was not known.
Link to the British letter: https://bit.ly/3oOSmYx (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)