Monitoring Desk
BELFAST: The European Union and the United Kingdom on Monday agreed a crucial trade rules in Northern Ireland, a breakthrough aimed to reset seriously strained relations since Brexit.
Both sides said that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak adopted the deal at talks in Windsor, west of London.
Their meeting followed over a year of tense talks over the “Northern Ireland Protocol,” which has unsettled the province 25 years after a historic peace deal ending three decades of armed conflict.
Agreed in early 2020 as part of Britain’s EU divorce, the deal kept the province in the European sole market for physical goods and subject to various customs rules than the rest of the UK, angering Eurosceptics and pro-UK unionists there in London.
The UK government had warned a unilateral overhaul of the protocol unless the European Union agreed to wholesale changes, deteriorating diplomatic ties and risking a broader trade war, but that prospect now seems to be receding.
“I am looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our friend and partner,” von der Leyen said as she left Brussels ahead of the negotiations.
The EU chief was also scheduled to meet King Charles III while in Windsor, hosiery accusations in the UK that Rishi Sunak was trying to project royal endorsement of the expected agreement.
UK PM Northern Ireland hails Brexit deal
Sunak’s spokesman insisted that Buckingham Palace decided the monarch’s meeting with von der Leyen.
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Sunak and von der Leyen were due to hold a short press conference. The UK leader will make a statement to parliament.
The agreement ends a long chapter of negotiations between UK and EU, under the direction of three British prime ministers and the cloud of the Ukraine war.
The protocol has faced major opposition from DUP (Democratic Unionist Party), the largest pro-UK party there, which insists it threatens the province’s place within the United Kingdom.
The Democratic Unionist Party collapsed devolved power-sharing a year ago and expressed to keep blocking the smooth functioning of the assembly until the rules are scrapped.
It is still not clear if the deal, which is likely to end most checks on Northern Ireland-bound goods and decrease the role of European institutions there, will satisfy the party.
