Brussels and London lower the tension to continue negotiating on Northern Ireland

The vice president of the European Commission responsible for relations with the United Kingdom, Maros Sefcovic, and the British minister for Brexit, David Frost, have concluded a new meeting this Friday with messages that reduce the tension of recent weeks between Brussels and London and they give more time to the negotiations to save the Irish protocol.

“I acknowledge and welcome the change in tone of the discussion with David Frost today and I hope this will lead to tangible results for the people of Northern Ireland,” Sefcovic said in a statement released after the London meeting.

The parties announce a new week of “intense” contacts, this time in Brussels, which will culminate on Friday with a new meeting of Sefcovic and Frost to verify the results that are reached.

The objective, both have said in separate statements, is to advance on key issues that now complicate the implementation of the protocol for Northern Ireland, a system designed to avoid the return to a physical border in Ulster after Brexit despite the need. to control the passage of goods between the Northern Irish province and Ireland, a member of the EU and, therefore, the gateway to the Internal Market.

Brussels presented weeks ago a proposal to reduce much of the bureaucracy and controls on goods circulating on the Irish island.

After the British threat to activate article 16 of the protocol that would unilaterally annul the entire agreement and the signals from Brussels that it would prepare coercive measures in reaction, Frost and Sefcovic have agreed this Friday that there is still room for dialogue and time to agree on a common solution.