United Kingdom and Gibraltar European Union membership referendum
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Ireland wants to introduce border controls to Northern Ireland when Britain leaves the EU without an agreement. "We're working out details with the European Commission," said Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. There will be checks on goods and livestock, which should, where possible, take place in airports, seaports and companies.
But also near the border there must be controls. Back in July, Varadkar said that Ireland was facing the challenge of protecting the EU's internal market while avoiding sharp border controls.
The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland has been the central issue in the Brexit negotiations for three years. In the case of a border with personal and physical checks, a resurgence of the Northern Ireland conflict is feared.
With an open border, the EU insists that Northern Ireland remains part of the single market with all its requirements until a final solution to the border is found. This rejects Prime Minister Boris Johnson as well as a majority in the British Parliament.
In Northern Ireland, Catholics reunited with Ireland and Protestant Protestants had fought civil war-like struggles for nearly three decades. Several thousand people died, many of them civilians. By the end of the 1990s, the border on the island was secured with watchtowers and heavily armed soldiers