Brussels announces four more files against the United Kingdom for breaches of the Irish protocol

BRUSSELS, July 22 () –

The European Commission announced this Friday the opening of four new sanctioning files against the United Kingdom for failing to comply with the provisions of the protocol for Northern Ireland negotiated between Brussels and London as part of the Withdrawal Treaty that allowed the British to leave the community club.

Specifically, the open cases have to do with the lack of customs controls on goods passing from Northern Ireland to the rest of Great Britain to prevent smuggling, the non-transposition of European rules on excise duties or those that reduce rates for alcohol and spirits to small producers, as well as non-compliance with the VAT rules that apply to online commerce.

The Community Executive decided last June to reactivate the first infringement procedure that it opened against the United Kingdom after a year on hold to try to make room for unsuccessful negotiation and explained that the legal analysis would continue to decide whether to take further measures after verifying the lack of will of the Government of Boris Johnson to unblock the situation.

“The unwillingness of the United Kingdom to engage in a meaningful discussion since last February and the adoption of the law on the Northern Ireland protocol clearly go against the spirit (of cooperation),” said a community spokeswoman to explain the decision. to initiate these files whose last phase would take the case before the Court of Justice of the EU if it is not resolved in the previous dialogue phases.

The summons letters now sent by the Community Executive to London for the new files give the British authorities a period of two months to respond to the irregularities indicated in each of them.

Otherwise, the community services will have to decide whether to go to the second phase that involves sending reasoned opinions urging changes to prevent the complaint from being raised to the European Justice.