Sep. 29 () –
The British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, has been in favor this Thursday of a “negotiated agreement” within the framework of the Northern Ireland protocol, although she has warned that the United Kingdom will act “unilaterally” if there is no resolution to the conflict with Brussels.
Brussels announced in June its decision to reactivate the judicial process against the United Kingdom for violating the protocol agreed between the Twenty-seven and London for Northern Ireland, a file that it opened in March 2021 but that it chose to park in an unsuccessful attempt to give space to negotiation between the parties.
“We have always been clear that we want to solve the problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol, ideally with a negotiated agreement, but we have approved the Northern Ireland Protocol bill because we could not achieve a negotiated agreement”, explained the first minister.
This bill, based on the Westminster rules, which is advancing in Parliament, would empower ministers to break parts of the agreement without the approval of the European Union, according to ‘Newsweek’.
Truss has explained that she is “open to negotiate”, as long as these trade agreements are resolved after Brexit. In this sense, she has clarified that the objective is that “the people of Northern Ireland can benefit from the same tax benefits as the people of Great Britain”.
“That means having east-west trade that flows freely, as well as north-south trade that flows (in the same way),” he said, adding that the aim is “to treat both communities in Northern Ireland as a fair way”, as he has said on the BBC, as reported by the newspaper ‘The Guardian’.
The Stormont Assembly has a process ahead of it to recover the institutionality of the Northern Irish autonomous government now with the Republican party Sinn Féin at the helm, after its victory in the elections last May.
Faced with this crisis, the British Prime Minister has indicated that she has assured “all” the politicians with whom she has spoken that the main thing is for the Assembly to function again. “The people of Northern Ireland need a Government”, she has sentenced her.
Irish Foreign Secretary Simon Coveney stressed on Wednesday that London is now willing to engage in “honest, open and serious” dialogue on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Thus, he said that the messages coming from the British Government are “quite different” from those of recent months.
Sinn Féin, led by Michelle O’Neill, won 27 of the 90 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly in the elections and is currently the first political force ahead of the DUP (25) and the Alliance Party (17). . The Ulster Unionists Party has nine seats and the Social Democratic and Labor Party has eight seats.
