LONDON (Washington Insider Magazine) – Ireland and Germany have criticized the UK government’s decision to unilaterally rewrite a section of the post-Brexit agreement with the EU.
There is a political or legal reason, according to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, for disregarding the established trade norms in Northern Ireland.
The ministers claim that by abandoning a global agreement that is just 2 years old and was not entered into in “good faith,” Britain will be breaching international law, as reported in the British daily The Observer on Sunday.
According to ABC NEWS, the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol in the agreement keeps Ireland’s border free and open of customs checks.
The office of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to get rid of the checks on meat and eggs coming into Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K., which safeguards the single market of the European Union.
Last Monday, London lawmakers approved a bill allowing the move.
The idea, according to Johnson’s opponents, critics, and some members from his own party as well as European observers, violates international law. The really exceptional situation, according to the administration, justifies it.
The bill, according to Coveney and Baerbock, won’t resolve the “challenges” with the procedure.
The action, according to the foreign ministers, puts the Good Friday Agreement, which has been in effect since 1998 and helped put an end to decades of sectarian conflict, at jeopardy.
By the time Parliament’s summer recess starts later in the month, Johnson’s administration had planned to have passed the law, which will be discussed again there on July 13. By the end of 2022, it may become a law as a result.
There is a chance of a trade conflict between the 2 main trading partners as the EU has pledged to react against the U.K. if it proceeds.
Meanwhile, Irish Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told the BBC on Sunday that the timing of a ballot on Irish reunification was not “right or appropriate.”
A referendum of this kind, which is allowed by the Good Friday Agreement when a vast bulk in Northern Ireland for a united Ireland is deemed “likely,” would be “divisive and defeated,” according to Varadkar, at this time.
Due to the protocol’s enforcement, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the country’s devolved legislature, has remained paralysed for months, leaving it without a local government.
