The Vice-President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, informed the national ambassadors of the Member States to the EU on Thursday 20 January of his initial contacts with the British Minister Liz Truss on the Northern Ireland Protocol. He again stressed that these first exchanges had taken place in a good atmosphere, with a “more positive tone” and more “voluntarism”, a diplomatic source noted, but also that this change of tone had to be confirmed in acts at the technical level.
The two leaders met last week in the UK, and this week the two sides resumed technical negotiations on the flexibilities to the protocol proposed by the European Commission at the end of 2021.
The Vice-President received the support of the Member States, to whom he reiterated the European Commission’s position not to renegotiate this agreed protocol at the end of 2019. But he reportedly did not set a strict deadline for concluding these negotiations, with some sources in Parliament, with whom Šefčovič met in the morning, suggesting that the European Commission would give itself until the end of February.
“There is no deadline, there is often mention of the election campaign in Northern Ireland (for the Legislative Assembly) and that it would be better to sort this out before then, but there is no deadline”, another diplomatic source said on 20 January, welcoming the fact that the atmosphere at the meeting between Šefčovič and Truss was good, but also asking that it “translate into progress at a technical level”.
The EU’s European Affairs Ministers will in turn take stock of relations with the United Kingdom on Tuesday 25 January, with the Vice-President in attendance. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)