Brexit talks reach first crunch point
Balancing different objectives not easy for Government given unrealistic and volatile nature of UK position
Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney with British foreign secretary Boris Johnson at Iveagh House in Dublin on Friday. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
The Government now faces a hectic few weeks of negotiation in the run-up to the next summit of EU leaders in mid-December. Central to this will be whether it judges that it has received sufficient assurances from the UK government about the Irish Border to agree that the Brexit talks can move to the next stage. This is made more complicated for Ireland by our desire to see the talks progress and come to a satisfactory conclusion, safeguarding our wider trade interests with the UK.
So-called Irish issues – including the Border – are one of a group on which “sufficient progress” must be made before the talks can continue on to phase two. At issue are what assurances Ireland will insist on and what London is prepared to offer. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said yesterday that Ireland wanted a commitment that there will be no “regulatory divergence” between the two parts of Ireland post-Brexit, but the UK will find it difficult to sign up to this.