Ireland is open to “modest” extensions of waivers on the movement of certain goods from Britain into Northern Ireland after the British government asked the European Union to tweak post-Brexit rules, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said.
Mr Coveney was speaking ahead of talks on the issue next week in London between British cabinet office minister Michael Gove and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic, both of whom Mr Coveney said he was in regular contact with.
“I would be open to advocating for modest extensions of grace periods,” Mr Coveney told RTÉ, but he said there was no question of scrapping the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
Mr Coveney insisted the protocol was generally working, highlighting that the volume of goods arriving into Northern Ireland ports was similar to this time last year.
Responding to a claim from Arlene Foster that he was “tone deaf” to unionist concerns about the protocol, Mr Coveney insisted he was just trying to be honest.
“Calls to scrap the protocol because there are some issues in terms of implementation just isn’t realistic and I’ve tried to be as honest about that as I can this week,” he said.
“That does not mean trying to pick a fight with the DUP, it’s just me being honest with people.
“You cannot simply scrap an element of an international treaty five weeks into its implementation, because you don’t like elements of it.”
'Unrealistic' demands
Meanwhile, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood warned that powersharing in the North could be under threat if political unionism continues to agitate for the “unrealistic” scrapping of new Irish Sea trading arrangements.
Mr Eastwood urged the DUP to end talk of political boycotts and dial down the rhetoric, and instead join with other Stormont parties to find workable solutions to issues linked to the Northern Ireland protocol.
Asked by RTÉ if there could be a threat to powersharing if unionists took an increasingly hardline approach to the protocol, Mr Eastwood said: “Yes, I think there could be and unionism needs to learn the lesson that they should have learned a number of times over the past 100 years – the British government will let you down and if you keep going to the right you’re going to end up in a worse position when you come back to the table.
“So come and work with us, let’s get together, the spirit of powersharing is what’s important right now, working in partnership to deal with the problems.
“But continuing to run to the microphone, have petitions and talk about protests and all that – none of that works, it’s not based in reality.
“We know the DUP campaigned for Brexit, it was a strategic error at the time.
“We can now work together to resolve some of the difficulty, but let’s all calm down, work together, put the rhetoric at the door because it’s not going to help and it will have a political impact.
“We’re seeing stability being rocked this week in a number of different ways and I think as political leaders we all have a responsibility, first and foremost, to be honest with our people and tell them what the scenario is, what the context is, why we have trading barriers and also come together to work through it, because the alternative is just not worth contemplating.”
