THE PROTOCOL WOES
Competing perceptions about the Northern Ireland Trade Protocol by the UK and EU are creating a bureaucratic log jam.
CLASH OF MINDSETS
The fundamental problem is that the British negotiating strategy is being driven by old fashioned, populist, and simplistic notions about trade. The EU strategy, on the other hand, is driven by a legal imperative to protect the most advanced form of economic and commercial integration between sovereign nations that have ever been achieved. It is fundamentally a clash of mindsets.
The fundamental problem is that the British negotiating strategy is being driven by old fashioned, populist, and
simplistic notions about trade. The EU strategy, on the other hand, is driven by a legal imperative to protect the most advanced form of economic and commercial integration between sovereign nations that have ever been achieved. It is fundamentally a clash of mindsets. The arguments of either side are based on basically incompatible assumptions.
John Bruton is the former Prime Minister of Ireland (Taoiseach) and a member of the Synergia Foundation Advisory Board.
N
otwithstanding the positive sounds emanating from Monday’s meeting between Liz Truss and Maros Sefcovic, the talks between the European Commission and the UK government over the Protocol on Northern Ireland (NI) are probably heading to a major crisis in the next month. There has been no movement of the UK side, and immovable deadlines are approaching.
The UK agreed to the Protocol as part of their Withdrawal Treaty with the EU. The Protocol was an intrinsic part of the Treaty. The UK Parliament ratified the Treaty, including the Protocol, but now the UK government is trying to scrap it altogether, under this pretence of “renegotiating” it.
CONSERVATIVE BRITAIN ALWAYS PRETENDED TO SEE THE EU AS A SIMPLE FREE TRADE AREA. BUT THE REST OF THE EU MEMBERS REALIZED ONE COULD NOT HAVE TRULY FREE TRADE UNLESS THERE WERE FOUR OTHER THINGS:
1
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Common rules on the quality of products
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Freedom for people and money to move from country to country,
3
Common trade policies vis a vis the rest of the world, and a shared set of political goals that facilitated day-to-day compromise.
A big segment of English opinion never accepted this latter concept of the EU. This makes it difficult for them to even understand the necessary implications of the Protocol.
