Boris Johnson has launched an ordeal to the European Union on Wednesday that threatens to burst the weak temporary armistice on Brexit.
The Government has presented in the British Parliament an alternative plan with proposals to revise the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.
If they are not accepted, London plans to unilaterally ignore part of the divorce agreement with the European Union sealed
in extremis
in the future.
on Christmas Eve.
The United Kingdom had long warned that the agreement to avoid land border controls with the Republic of Ireland had become unsustainable for British companies, but after countless hours of negotiation to find the square of the circle, the buck passes to the roof of Brussels with an approach that aims to rewrite what was signed last December, or what is the same, directly challenging the refusal of the Community authorities to amend the compromise solution that relocates the
de facto
border
between the UK and the EU.
More information
Northern Ireland burns again
Merkel leaves Brexit behind to offer the UK a "new chapter" in their bilateral relationship
The idea is not new. London proposes to eliminate most of the controls signed in its day by the British Prime Minister himself through formulas based on trust, guaranteeing that the products that pass from the island of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) to Northern Ireland will stay in the region, and the mutual recognition of their respective regulations. A priori, the suggestion is bound for a head-on collision against the wall of a European Commission that has repeatedly ruled out accepting the new UK regulatory standards, but the Johnson Executive is willing to display the same stubbornness, hoping that to force to repeat the problems in the commercial exchange, due to the increase of paperwork, customs declarations and, crucially, physical controls,their former partners end up accepting what until now they considered a red line.
The British Minister for Brexit, David Frost, has announced in the House of Lords a battery of measures that confirms what Brussels fears: that instead of analyzing how to guarantee compliance with the Northern Ireland Protocol, London aspires to reformulate it accordingly. root. Frost is aware of the challenge, since it was precisely he who during marathon negotiating days had finalized the fine print of the agreement that laid the foundations for the new relationship after 47 years of marriage of convenience. "We do not deny that what we propose are significant changes," he admitted in his appearance, but justified them in that "they are necessary" to transfer "certainty and stability" to British businesses based in Great Britain,many of which have stopped operating to Northern Ireland to avoid the administrative burden of implementing the protocol.