Commission Vice-President Maros Šefčovič and UK Minister to the EU David Frost met on Friday 29 October in London to continue discussions on the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, but have not yet been able to reconcile their positions.
This meeting took place in a tense situation, due to British demands to remove the existence of the EU Court of Justice from the provisions of this Protocol, but above all to the crisis between London and Paris over the fishing licences granted to French vessels by the British government.
While Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had indicated on 28 October that any renegotiation of the Protocol, including the withdrawal of the Court of Justice, was out of the question, the Vice-President “recalled that the tailor-made arrangements proposed by the European Commission are unprecedented and far-reaching”, according to an official statement.
The Commission’s proposals made on 13 October to relax customs and phytosanitary controls (see EUROPE 12811/14) “respond to concerns raised by the people and businesses of Northern Ireland”. And the UK government must “engage constructively with these proposals”.
“It is now essential to find common ground between the respective positions of the EU and the UK”, the Vice-President said.
Discussions will continue next week in Brussels, with a forthcoming meeting between the two men scheduled for 5 November.
“The week’s talks have been conducted in a constructive spirit. While there is some overlap between our positions on a subset of the issues, the gaps between us remain substantial. As we have noted before, the EU proposals represent a welcome step forward, but do not free up goods movement between Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the extent necessary for a durable solution. Nor do they yet engage with the changes needed in other areas, such as subsidy policy, VAT, and the governance of the Protocol, including the role of the Court of Justice”, commented the Briton.
New threats from London
Regarding the fisheries crisis between France and the UK (see EUROPE 12822/6), the Vice-President also “encouraged the UK to intensify discussions with the European Commission and France in order to quickly resolve the issue of outstanding fishing licences. All French ships entitled to a licence should receive one”, the statement said.
Mid-day Friday, the Commission had indicated that, according to its information, the Scottish trawler boarded by the French authorities in the middle of the week, and the source of the new tensions, had not had a licence since 1 March, the British authorities having withdrawn it, the Commission said.
The Commission also indicated that it would closely evaluate the retaliatory measures announced by Paris, including the tightening of controls on British products, which the French government plans to activate on 2 November, if no solution is found by then on the missing licences for French boats.
For his part, David Frost reiterated to Maros Šefčovič his government’s concerns about “the unjustified measures announced by France earlier this week to disrupt fishing and trade at large in the UK, to threaten energy supplies and to block further cooperation between the UK and the EU, for example under the Horizon research programme”.
David Frost threatened to use the dispute settlement mechanism of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement if the situation worsened further. Regarding the Protocol on Northern Ireland, London also threatens to activate Article 16, which would unilaterally suspend all arrangements agreed between the two sides.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron were scheduled to meet in the margins of the G20 summit in Rome on Friday 29 October. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)