On Tuesday 23 February, the European Affairs Ministers of the EU27 discussed their relations with the United Kingdom and took stock of both the state of ratification of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and the difficulties in implementing the Northern Ireland Protocol linked to the agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
“Everyone could see that our partnership is no longer the one we had when the United Kingdom was a Member State”, commented the Vice President for Interinstitutional Affairs, Maroš Šefčovič, at the end of the meeting, calling for “caution” in the implementation of the withdrawal agreement and for “close” monitoring of its application.
With regard to the Northern Ireland Protocol, which was contested on the spot notably by the unionist party DUP, the Vice-President recalled the EU’s commitment to be “constructive” and to find solutions that would help to ease the difficulties.
However, while a new meeting will be held with London on this subject on 24 February, the Vice-President stressed that the protocol was precisely “the solution” to the problems raised by London (of exports to Great Britain and vice versa) and the EU will not be able to consider requests for adjustments without the British government first explaining how it was using the three-month grace period already provided for in the agreement.
The United Kingdom must also fully apply the rules of the protocol, the Vice-President said, stressing that being in both the single market and the British market is a “ huge opportunity” for Northern Ireland.
However, “not everything can be solved”, because there are “inevitable consequences” associated with Brexit, he also warned.
London agrees to extend provisional application of trade agreement
With regard to the ratification of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, on Tuesday the British government announced its agreement to extend the provisional application period of the agreement from 28 February to the end of April, as requested by the Commission last week, after the EU Council gave the go-ahead for the extension request.
At the procedural level, the Council of the EU will now have to refer the matter to the European Parliament, which could vote its consent at the second session in March, according to one source. There has been a lot of confusion in the last few days in Parliament, which has said it is ready to vote in time, in this case on 23 February. However, the Council of the EU had deemed this deadline untenable, in particular because of the constraints on the legal translation of the texts.
It should be noted that this General Affairs Council was the last for Michel Barnier, who is still supervising the ratification of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement for a few weeks, as he indicated on his Twitter account. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)