British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss promised in Parliament to legislate “in the next weeks” on the protocol, “to replace the measures that were in the Treaty with a system that would remove the role of the European Union”Explain The Irish Times.
The bill notably provides for the creation of a “green corridor” which would allow goods originating in the United Kingdom and destined exclusively for the Northern Irish market “to enter without control”while goods destined for Ireland – and by extension the European Union – would borrow a “red corridor” accompanied by controls, specifies the daily newspaper of Dublin.
“The proposal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs would imply a big change”observe the BBC. The movement of goods in Northern Ireland would be organized on the basis of a “dual system, instead of following European rules. It’s more than just adjustments”.
Under the protocol currently in force, the control of goods coming from the United Kingdom is done in the ports of Northern Ireland. The device prevented the re-establishment of a physical border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, but created in fact a border between the British province and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Political blockage
This situation, which has always been deemed unacceptable by the unionists of Northern Ireland – who fiercely defend their belonging to the United Kingdom – ended up leading to the political blockage of the province, after the victory on May 7 of the nationalists of Sinn Féin in the elections. local.
The Good Friday Peace Accords, which ended decades of Troubles in 1998, imposed an equitable sharing of power between unionists and nationalists within the Northern Irish executive. But the unionists refused to take part in the government “until the protocol issues were resolved”emphasizes the Belfast Telegraph.
The leader of the Unionist Party (DUP), Jeffrey Donaldson, is moreover one of the few to have welcomed the announcement of Liz Truss. It is “a real step forward in solving the problems created by the protocol”he estimated.
The European Union (EU) strongly condemned the British position through the voice of the Vice-President of the European Commission, Maros Sefcovic, for whom any unilateral modification of the protocol would be “unacceptable”. In the event of non-compliance with the Treaty, the EU “will respond with all means at its disposal”at-il having you.