In London on Monday 9 January, Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris took stock of work to find common solutions to concerns raised by Northern Irish businesses and communities and agreed to meet again next week, according to a Commission press release.
The meeting, described by the Commission as “cordial and constructive”, led to an agreement “on the way forward on the specific issue of EU access to UK IT systems”, allowing the EU authorities to verify the application of EU rules in trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
“This means a new basis for discussions” on the Northern Ireland protocol, the Vice-President said on Twitter.
The three leaders underlined “the shared commitment of the EU and the UK to protect the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement in all its parts, while safeguarding the integrity of the EU’s single market and the UK’s internal market”, the statement added.
“While a number of key issues need to be resolved in order to move forward”, the statement continued, the three actors considered that work on these issues “is an essential precondition for building trust”.
EU and UK technical teams will work quickly to assess the potential for solutions in different areas, based on this new understanding. A further meeting is scheduled for 16 January.
Before Christmas, the Commission had already authorised the extension of a derogation scheme for veterinary medicines (see EUROPE 13087/13). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)