EU: Halting Northern Ireland-UK checks an 'absolute breach'
February 3, 2022
Ireland's EU commissioner says the halting of border checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea would break the UK's Brexit deal with the bloc, and international law.
Customs officials check freight trucks as they disembark from a ferry at the Northern Irish port of LarneImage: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
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The European Union's financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness on Thursday said that an order by the Northern Irish government to stop post-Brexit checks on some products would be "an absolute breach of international law."
Months of talks between London and Brussels on the checks have so far failed to find a resolution, with the EU insisting that the separation deal with the UK cannot be rewritten.
What is the EU saying?
McGuinness, who is Ireland's representative on the EU's executive, said the halting of checks on agricultural and food products would create "uncertainty, instability, and unpredictability."
"The news of this stopping of inspections — if that is actually what happens — is really, really unhelpful in us finding a way forward," McGuinness told national broadcaster RTE.
"It's an absolute breach of international law. That is a major problem because we need to be able to trust each other."
"We have reminded our UK counterparts from the very outset when they resigned, if you like, or pulled away from implementing the agreement, that they actually have proposed and signed up to that."
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and EU Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic are due to hold further talks on Thursday.
Ahead of that meeting, the Commission said Sefcovic would tell Truss that the checks were an essential part of their Brexit divorce deal.
Northern Ireland's changing border
The 499-kilometer Irish border wasn't originally intended to be an international frontier. Since the Republic of Ireland was created, the situation at the border has mirrored the changing nature of Anglo-Irish relations.
Image: imago/UIG
The Irish Free State
Britain's response to Irish demands for independence was devolution within the UK, or home rule. Pro-British Unionists didn't want to be governed by Dublin, so two parliaments were set up, for Northern and Southern Ireland. However, nationalists still pushed for full independence and in 1922 Southern Ireland was superseded by the Irish Free State as enshrined in the Anglo-Irish Treaty (pictured).
Image: Getty Images/Topical Press Agency
The Six Counties
Northern Ireland had been carved in a way that allowed Protestant loyalists to stay in control, but also ensure the region was large enough to be viable. It included four majority-Protestant counties in the ancient province of Ulster, as well as the two Catholic nationalist counties. Three of Ulster's counties — Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan — were placed on the Southern Ireland side of the border.
No laughing matter?
Involving members of the British, Irish and devolved Belfast governments, a 1924-25 boundary commission looked at the whether the border should stay where it was. It broadly remained in the same place, often cutting through communities across its 310 miles. The Spike Milligan novel "Puckoon," made into a film (above), charted the problems brought to a fictional Irish village divided by the border.
The new border's checkpoints initially regulated the movement of certain goods, with movement of people being free. However, the Anglo-Irish Trade War of the 1930s saw tariffs imposed on foods and later coal and steel. The dispute ended in 1936, but Ireland still pursued protectionist policies into the 1950s. Customs stayed in place until the advent of the EU Single Market in 1993.
Image: picture alliance/AP Images/S. Smart
Bloody legacy
With an escalation in fighting in Northern Ireland in 1969, British troops were sent to the province, fueling nationalist resentment. The border was heavily guarded to stop weapons smuggling from the Republic. The South Armagh stretch was particularly notorious. The Irish Republican Army's South Armagh Brigade is thought to have killed about 165 British troops and police from 1970 to 1997.
Image: picture alliance/empics/PA
South of the Border
The border was also policed by the Republic of Ireland's security forces, who intensified their anti-terror efforts in the late 1970s. They worked with the British, but the working relationship was not an easy one. To communicate with Irish counterparts, British troops at one time had to speak to the Northern Irish police, who would contact the Irish police, who would then call the Irish army.
Image: picture alliance/empics/PA
Watchtowers and rifle sights
Despite the end of customs in 1993, the threat of terror still loomed and the border remained militarized, with watchtowers and soldiers. After the 1998 Good Friday Agreement — which brought back devolved government to Northern Ireland and sought to address issues such as policing and paramilitarism — the IRA eventually halted its campaign of violence as border security disappeared.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. McErlane
Barely noticeable
The border today remains as invisible as it has ever been, with free movement of traffic between the Republic and the North. The picture shows two policemen, one British, one Irish, watching as a foreign leg of the Giro d'Italia crosses the border in Armagh.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/P. McErlane
Anything to declare?
There were fears that Brexit would make a hard border necessary, given that Britain has left both the EU Customs Union and Single Market. The border issue was one of three conditions laid out by the EU for talks on future trade after the separation. Campaigners, like those pictured above, had sought to remind the public of what a hard border would look like.
Image: picture alliance/empics/N. Carson/PA Wire
Border in the Irish Sea
Customs officials check freight trucks as they disembark from a ferry at the Northern Irish port of Larne. The inspections effectively created a customs border in the Irish Sea, avoiding the need for checks on land. The arrangement has led to supply problems for some businesses. However, it has been touted as good for Northern Ireland, giving firms there free access to both the UK and EU markets.
In exchange for Northern Ireland remaining linked to the European Single Market by an open land border, the UK agreed that there would instead be checks on some goods going to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
The aim was to preserve the integrity of the European Single Market by maintaining its external limit while also honoring the Belfast Agreement, which states that an open border must be maintained on the island of Ireland. The 1998 Belfast Agreement is the cornerstone of the Northern Irish peace process, which brought to an end decades of violence.
Northern Ireland's Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots on Wednesday ordered an end to all post-Brexit checks on agri-food goods entering the province from the rest of the United Kingdom.
Poots, a member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), cited legal advice that the checks — which effectively create a customs border in the Irish Sea — should not have been given regional government approval.
Checks were still said to be continuing at Belfast Port on Thursday morning.
The DUP opposes the Northern Ireland Protocol which mandates the checks. It has also spoken of a betrayal by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who repeatedly promised prior to becoming prime minister that no such checks would ever to be introduced, only to agree to them with the EU once he no longer relied on DUP support to prop up his Conservative government in Parliament.
The arrangement — which Northern Ireland's British Unionists say undermines the province's place in the UK — has led to red tape and supply problems for some businesses. However, it has also been touted as good for Northern Ireland, giving firms there free or largely-free access to both the UK and EU markets.
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UK says changes needed
The UK government — which has previously said it wants to rewrite the agreement it struck with Brussels in 2020 — on Thursday said the decision to stop the checks was a matter for the province's devolved executive. A spokesman sought to highlight the upcoming talks and the UK's attempts to revise the Northern Ireland Protocol.
"We have been consistently clear that there are significant problems with the Protocol which urgently need fixing, which is why we are in intensive talks with the EU to find solutions," a British government spokesman said.
Britain has threatened to use an emergency break clause to suspend parts of the legally binding Brexit agreement — something that could trigger EU retaliation and jeopardize other aspects of the Brexit accord.
