Ministers have confirmed that talks between UK, EU and Irish officials are set to resume this week to finally resolve the long-standing dispute in the implementation of the Brexit deal in Northern Ireland.
On Wednesday (5 October), Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney confirmed he would meet UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly for dinner in London on Thursday evening and Co-Chair a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference with Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris on Friday.
“The EU has shown a willingness to compromise, to try to respond to legitimate concerns that have been expressed in Northern Ireland, and it remains to be seen whether this new-look British Government is willing to make compromises to get a deal done,” he said.
“But certainly the mood music has changed quite fundamentally, we welcome that, and we will work on not only the relationships to rebuild trust, but also work on solutions in a practical way, and I think that process very much starts in earnest this week,” Coveney added.
While new Prime Minister Liz Truss has made a rocky start at home, facing open criticism from ministers and her Conservative MPs over her plans to borrow over £40 billion to slash taxes, prompting a market run on the UK pound and government bonds, her early approach to EU relations has been far more constructive than expected.
On Thursday, Truss will attend the first meeting of the European Political Community; the new forum thought up by French President Emmanuel Macron that aims to bring together European countries outside the EU.
The European Commission earlier this week confirmed the two sides would meet for technical-level talks,
At the start of the week, junior Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker, one of the most hardline Brexit campaigners, shocked party delegates by telling them that Conservative ministers needed to show ‘humility’ and recognise that during the Brexit process, they “did not always behave in a way which encouraged Ireland and the European Union to trust us to accept that they have legitimate interests, legitimate interests that we’re willing to respect because they do and we are willing to respect them.”
“And I am sorry about that because relations with Ireland are not where they should be, and we will need to work extremely hard to improve them, and I know that we are doing so,” he said.
Baker also said that he had used the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth earlier this month to apologise to Irish ministers personally, a move which Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin described as “honest and very, very helpful”.
During her speech to Conservative party delegates on Wednesday, Truss repeated her campaign promise to scrap swathes of EU law that remain on the UK statute book as part of her plans to focus on ‘growth, growth and growth’.
She also promised legislation “to ensure that no European judge can override us on immigration and asylum”.
[Edited by Alice Taylor]
Source: euractiv.com
