Newton Emerson: EU attitude to goods checks in North is unhelpful

The 12-month Brexit grace period on moving medicine from Britain into Northern Ireland runs out on December 31st this year. The following day, all licensed medicine – from National Health Service supplies to over-the-counter products – will be treated as imports into the EU and require full EU authorisation, testing and labelling in addition to standard customs and safety inspections.

If everything has not been worked out or smoothed over by December 31st, supplies to Northern Ireland must be blocked by British authorities. Medicine should be stopped in the first instance by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency or intercepted in transit by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

Of course, that will never happen. It is inconceivable the UK would voluntarily block its internal medical supplies in order to comply with EU border requirements, even if it is sincerely committed to meeting those requirements. The scenario is only worth illustrating to reveal the herd of unicorns stampeding towards the Northern Ireland protocol.

Whatever the EU thinks is at stake here, it is not the peace and comfort of Northern Ireland

A similar set of deadlines for medical devices will be expiring in stages over the next two years. The EU already demands guide dogs be turned back at Larne. Does it think it can do the same for wheelchairs?

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Somehow, the EU did think it could take this stance on the UK’s internal food supply. A three-month grace period was to run out at the end of this month, at which point Brussels expected Northern Ireland to perform more veterinary checks on imported food than the whole of the EU combined.

As the deadline loomed – with businesses and officials naturally unable to comply – sources in Brussels were reported saying the people of Northern Ireland would hardly starve and supermarkets should simply switch to EU suppliers. This was not a unicorn, apparently, just an incredibly awkward but definitely real creature, like a panda.

Grace period

When the UK unilaterally extended the grace period last week, there was universal relief amongst Northern Ireland’s business community which has been unstinting in its criticism of the British government. Brussels has long advised everyone to heed this criticism but this time ignored its own advice.

EU sources then insisted they were about to agree an extension and everyone always knew there would be an extension, despite the EU having publicly ruled it out – but since the UK had gone ahead, there had to be a legal challenge and an unholy row.

Whatever the EU thinks is at stake here, it is not the peace and comfort of Northern Ireland. If that were its priority, it could have played the adult in the room – the role it professes to fill – by letting the unilateral extension pass with a token protest. If the EU believes the UK is trying to renegotiate or sabotage the protocol, the sensible response would have been to avoid the trap.

If London is seeking to renegotiate the protocol, Brussels is making its case for it

Brussels could have said it was refusing to be drawn into needless antagonism and would gladly grant extra time, while keeping a closer eye on London’s efforts.

Why the urgency instead? It is credible to fear counterfeit or unlicensed medicine getting into the single market but food is generally a low-margin, high-volume business. Under how many circumstances would it pay to smuggle meat from Britain into the EU via Northern Ireland, let alone from the rest of the world into the EU via Britain and Northern Ireland?

How hard could it be to detect these hypothetical containers of horse burgers as each worked its way expensively through the ports of Felixstowe, Cairnryan and Belfast, then maybe on through Rosslare and Cherbourg?

Simmering argument

The sea border is meant to apply only to goods “at risk” of entering the EU. Brussels originally said this covered all goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain.

Last December, it agreed in principle with London that most such goods are not at risk. Yet the argument is clearly still simmering: London has repeatedly asked for enforcement to be “risk-based and proportionate”; Brussels will only promise to be “pragmatic” in ensuring full checks are made.

Many questions and accusations have been levelled at the British government’s tactics over the past week but at least it has a logical motivation to argue the sea border risk is low. Its behaviour remains theoretically compatible with wanting to make the sea border work, even if other reasons are suspected.

What is the EU’s rationale for exaggerating the risk and demanding immediate, hopeless levels of enforcement? Is it just bureaucratic intransigence?

If London is seeking to renegotiate the protocol, Brussels is making its case for it. If London is hoping for some checks at the land border or between the Republic and the continent, hysteria about goods leaking onto the island makes a case for that as well.

Brussels may feel it needs to impose discipline on an untrustworthy partner but it also needs to engage in some unilateral de-dramatisation. Alarm in Northern Ireland at the EU’s perception of the sea border is extending beyond unionist Brexiteers.