British MPs adopted Monday evening June 27 at first reading a unilateral revision of post-Brexit customs provisions in Northern Ireland, deemed illegal by the European Union, which has already begun its response.
The reform was adopted in the House of Commons by 295 votes against 221 after a debate on these controversial provisions which had started in the afternoon.
The bill must now follow its parliamentary course until final adoption.
Read alsoBrexit: Brussels launches legal proceedings against the United Kingdom
“There are unnecessary barriers to trade from Britain to Northern Ireland, and all we are saying is that they can be removed without in any way threatening the European single market
, ”
said Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday, in Germany for a summit of G7 leaders, calling on Brussels to show
"flexibility"
.
Launching the debate on Monday afternoon in Parliament, British Foreign Minister Liz Truss said that a global change in protocol was necessary to encourage Unionists to participate in the government in Belfast.
“It is both legal and necessary”
, she said of the reform, denying that the UK is breaking international law and stressing the need to prioritize the peace process.
In parliament, former Prime Minister Theresa May - who resigned after failing to win parliamentary backing for her own Brexit divorce deal - said she could not support the bill.
This text is
"not legal (...) it will not achieve its objectives"
and it
"will diminish the position of the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world"
, she declared to the deputies.
Any unilateral decision to violate international law is a major and serious development.
»
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin
Since the British government unveiled its intention to remove controls on goods arriving in the British province from Great Britain, the EU has repeatedly denounced a unilateral move and raised the threat of trade retaliation .
London believes that time is running out, given the political paralysis caused by this international treaty in the British province: the unionists of the DUP refuse to participate in a local government until the controls are abandoned, seeing it as a threat to the integrity of the UK.
“Any unilateral decision to violate international law is a major and serious development”
, denounced Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin from Dublin.
For his part, the head of Irish diplomacy Simon Coveney urged London to resume
"a constructive dialogue with the EU"
in order to achieve
"durable solutions jointly agreed"
.
The protocol aimed to protect the single European market after Brexit, without causing the return of a physical demarcation between the British province and the Republic of Ireland, a member of the EU, which could jeopardize the peace signed in 1998 between loyalists attached to the British crown and republicans in favor of reunification, after three decades of deadly violence.
The government of Boris Johnson had accepted that the province remains de facto within the European market, establishing a customs border in the Irish Sea, with controls and paperwork.
Read alsoThe relief of the French who have become British since Brexit
For Europeans, the British text is
"both illegal and unrealistic"
, according to the EU ambassador to the United Kingdom, João Vale de Almeida.
According to the British plan, goods destined to remain in Northern Ireland, and therefore within the British market, would benefit from a “green” channel avoiding checks.
A 'red' lane would be for goods likely to enter the European market via Ireland, which would have to be declared, while checks would be carried out in Britain.
After the introduction of the British bill, the EU announced the relaunch of an infringement procedure, put on hold in September 2021, for breach of the protocol, as well as the launch of two others, for non-compliance with
“ necessary checks'
in sanitary and phytosanitary matters and for incomplete trade data provided to the EU.
She also presented in more detail her unsuccessful proposals made to the British government in October, which she said would significantly reduce customs controls and formalities for a wide range of goods destined for Northern Ireland alone.