Britain asking EU to ‘deliver the impossible’ on NI protocol changes – Coveney

The British government has been asking the European Union to "deliver the impossible" when it comes to changes to the Northern Ireland protocol, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said.

There was now a “very serious risk” that the British government would choose to trigger Article 16, effectively suspending the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol agreed in Brexit talks, Mr Coveney said.

The decision, expected in the coming weeks, would likely lead to a major flashpoint in the British government's relationship with both Dublin and Brussels.

The protocol avoided a hard border on the island of Ireland by placing a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea, with checks on some goods coming from Britain to Northern Ireland put in place.

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Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Coveney said discussions around the protocol were “at a really serious point”. The Government were “working hard” to ensure that Article 16 was not triggered, he told the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee.

The European Commission had been in "deal making mode" to find compromises and show flexibility in how the contentious protocol was implemented on the ground, he said.

The commission had looked to push “all of the legal boundaries” to reduce checks on products coming from Britain to Northern Ireland, he said.

There had been a “very genuine effort” from the commission to try and address concerns around how the protocol was being implemented, he said.

However, the approach by the British government had been to “bank” any concessions, and respond by “looking for more and giving very little recognition to the extent to which the European Commission has moved,” he said.

‘Bad faith’

While issues around the European Court of Justice had been raised in Westminster, the matter was not viewed as a “priority” in Northern Ireland, by those Mr Coveney said he and EU leaders had spoken to.

Mr Coveney said any move to suspend the protocol by the British “will trigger a very robust response” from the EU, and would be viewed as an act of “bad faith,” he said.

If Britain continued to ask the EU to “deliver the impossible” and seek further concessions, he said he believed the negotiation was “going to run out of road”.

Separately, some 106 Irish citizens had been repatriated from Afghanistan to Ireland, since the fall of the country to the Taliban, he told the committee.

There were 14 Irish citizens still in the country, a dozen of whom were seeking to leave. A further 20 Afghans who were Irish residents had been successfully brought back to Ireland, with 12 Irish residents still in the country attempting to leave. Mr Coveney said Irish diplomats would “do what we can to get them out”.

Some 490 Afghans had been granted refugee status by Ireland, with 300 of that figure either already in Ireland or en route.

There were 190 people granted refugee status by Ireland who were still in Afghanistan, who were attempting to get out of the country, Mr Coveney said.