Britain and the EU vowed on Thursday to resolve post-Brexit trade frictions on the Northern Ireland border in the wake of the UK’s departure from the bloc.
Northern Ireland was barely mentioned in parliamentary debates leading up to the 2016 Brexit referendum.
However, the nature of the 499-kilometer (310-mile) border that separates the north from the south has become one of the most contentious issues since, especially trade and the vulnerability of the 1998 peace agreement, the The Good Friday Agreement largely ended the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland that had raged since the late 1960s.
Since the UK completely left the EU after the post-Brexit transition period ended on January 1, there has been a significant shortage of fresh produce and other goods in Northern Ireland, exacerbating post-Brexit tensions .
British Senior Cabinet Minister Michael Gove and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic held “a frank but constructive discussion” with the Good Friday Agreement and goods supply issues at the center of those talks, they both said.
Their statement added that they would “spare no effort” to implement the solutions agreed in December under the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.
Irish PM calls for calm
Relations between the UK and the EU have become increasingly contentious, with Ireland closely monitoring the proceedings.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin has called on both sides to “cut back on the rhetoric.”
“We just have to calm him down, because ultimately we want the UK to align itself well with the European Union. We want harmonious and sensible relationships, ”he told RTE radio.
Single market friction point
The dispute between the bloc and the United Kingdom revolves around the EU’s insistence that Britain abide by its withdrawal treaty, which left Northern Ireland within the European Union’s single market.
Under the Northern Ireland Protocol, the territory remains in the single market for goods and applies EU customs rules at its ports due to a border in the Irish Sea, which divides the province from mainland Britain.
Gove, who last month threatened that London would consider “all the instruments at its disposal” if it did not secure the necessary concessions in Northern Ireland, met with Sefcovic in London on Thursday night.
Gove and Sefcovic said they would meet again “by February 24 at the latest to give the necessary political direction and approval to this work in a spirit of collaboration, responsibility and pragmatism.”
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