LONDON — Germany and Ireland have condemned the British government’s decision to unilaterally rewrite parts of the post-Brexit deal with the European Union.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her Irish counterpart Simon Coveney said there was “no legal or political justification” for overriding agreed trade rules in Northern Ireland.
Writing in Britain’s The Observer newspaper on Sunday, ministers said Britain would break a barely two-year-old international agreement to which it had not committed itself in “good faith”.
The so-called Northern Ireland Protocol under the deal keeps the border with EU member Ireland open and free of customs posts.
The administration of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to remove controls on goods such as meat and eggs arriving in Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, which protect the European Union’s single market.
London lawmakers passed legislation allowing the move last week.
Johnson’s critics, opponents and some members of his own party, as well as European observers, said the plan violated international law. The government argues that this is justified due to the “truly exceptional situation”.
Baerbock and Coveney said the bill would not resolve “challenges” around the protocol.
“Instead, it will create a new set of uncertainties and make it more difficult to find lasting solutions,” they wrote.
Foreign ministers also argued the move jeopardizes peace in Northern Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement, which has helped end decades of sectarian violence and has been in force since 1998. .
Johnson’s government has hoped to pass the legislation, which will be debated in parliament again on July 13 as his summer recess begins later in the month. That could see it become law by the end of 2022.
The EU has threatened to retaliate against the UK if it goes ahead, raising the prospect of a trade war between the two major trading partners.
Separately, Irish Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told the BBC on Sunday that now was not the “appropriate or good” time for an Irish reunification poll.
Varadkar said such a referendum, allowed under the Good Friday Agreement when a majority in Northern Ireland in favor of a united Ireland is seen as ‘likely’, would be ‘dividing and defeated’ at the moment .
The Northern Ireland Assembly, its devolved legislature, has been paralyzed for months over implementing the protocol, leaving it without a regional government.
ABC News