Nov. 10 () –
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, has defended in a meeting with his Irish counterpart, Micheál Martin, the decision of his Government to postpone, through a law that sets a new deadline, another six weeks the holding of elections in the Assembly of Stormont.
Likewise, it has reiterated its “firm commitment” to defend the 1998 Good Friday Agreement “in all its dimensions”, while recalling that the process can only be carried out within the framework of “a negotiated solution with the EU According to a British government statement.
“I think we all recognize that the protocol is having a real impact on the ground, on families, on businesses in Northern Ireland,” Sunak said, adding that he wants the institutions to work again.
For his part, Martin stressed that there is a strong determination on the part of the British Government and the EU to reach a “negotiated solution”. “Both the prime minister and I agreed that we would remain very focused with a view to reaching an agreement as quickly as possible,” he said.
In this sense, he has reiterated that he hopes that it can be achieved and “advance” both in the restoration of the Executive and of all the institutions within the framework of the Good Friday Agreement. “The people and businesses of Northern Ireland have made it very clear that they want agreed solutions,” she added.
Both have agreed at the summit of the British-Irish Council and have also held “constructive” discussions on climate change, the increase in energy prices, as well as the West’s response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to what has been collected the RTÉ television channel.
The British minister for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris, has promised this Thursday that the elections to the Assembly will be held in the first quarter of 2023, after being postponed for another six weeks with the aim of “creating the necessary time and space so that the talks between the Government and the EU Commission” take place properly.
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.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refuses to return to the Executive until the dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol is resolved in its terms, for which the process has been blocked for months after a vote that did not go ahead to nominate the president and Vice President of Stormont.
Sinn Féin, led by Michelle O’Neill, won 27 of the 90 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly and is currently the leading 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.
