Unless the DUP changes its mind, it could take up to six months before fresh elections would be held…reports Asian Lite News
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) lived up to its threat and blocked the restoration of the power-sharing government.
In the Northern Ireland Assembly (Stormont) on Friday, the DUP politicians abstained in a vote on the appointment of a Speaker, forcing it to collapse, reports Xinhua news agency.
They ignored pleas by other elected members to allow the assembly and its cabinet of ministers to function.
Unless the DUP changes its mind, it could take up to six months before fresh elections would be held.
In the meantime, there will be no functioning executive cabinet or Assembly.
In last week’s elections, the pro-Republican Sinn Fein party won majority support and the right to choose, for the first time ever, the administration’s First Minister.
The vote left the previous majority-holder in the assembly, the DUP, with the right to name a Deputy First Minister.
Under the rules, the Assembly and its executive cabinet cannot function unless a Speaker, First Minister and a Deputy fFirst Minister are all in place.
The DUP vehemently opposes the Northern Ireland Protocol, the trade solution agreed by London and the European Union (EU) to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the neighbouring Republic of Ireland.
Under the deal, an Irish Sea border was created between the British mainland and Northern Ireland, meaning goods transported to and from Northern Ireland are subjected to border controls.
It has led to threats by the British government to tear up the protocol, a prospect hotly opposed by the EU.
The focus now switches to UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who needs to solve the protocol dispute with EU officials in Brussels.
In Friday’s debate, the DUP’s Gordon Lyons said: “We will not be going into an executive until we deal with the instability of the protocol and with the long shadow it is casting.”
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson warns against new checks at N.Ireland ports.(pic credit: https://twitter.com/J_Donaldson_MP)
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) lived up to its threat and blocked the restoration of the power-sharing government, reports Asian Lite News
In the Northern Ireland Assembly (Stormont) on Friday, the DUP politicians abstained in a vote on the appointment of a Speaker, forcing it to collapse, reports Xinhua news agency.
They ignored pleas by other elected members to allow the assembly and its cabinet of ministers to function.
Unless the DUP changes its mind, it could take up to six months before fresh elections would be held.
In the meantime, there will be no functioning executive cabinet or Assembly.
In last week’s elections, the pro-Republican Sinn Fein party won majority support and the right to choose, for the first time ever, the administration’s First Minister.
The vote left the previous majority-holder in the assembly, the DUP, with the right to name a Deputy First Minister.
Under the rules, the Assembly and its executive cabinet cannot function unless a Speaker, First Minister and a Deputy fFirst Minister are all in place.
The DUP vehemently opposes the Northern Ireland Protocol, the trade solution agreed by London and the European Union (EU) to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the neighbouring Republic of Ireland.
Under the deal, an Irish Sea border was created between the British mainland and Northern Ireland, meaning goods transported to and from Northern Ireland are subjected to border controls.
It has led to threats by the British government to tear up the protocol, a prospect hotly opposed by the EU.
The focus now switches to UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who needs to solve the protocol dispute with EU officials in Brussels.
In Friday’s debate, the DUP’s Gordon Lyons said: “We will not be going into an executive until we deal with the instability of the protocol and with the long shadow it is casting.”
In a statement after the vote, Paul Murnaghan, president of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, described the decision as a blow to business and investor confidence.
“At a time when our elected representatives should be getting straight to work to tackle a myriad of very significant challenges, we remain in limbo.
“We call on all political representatives to stop allowing division to hold back progress and form a stable, fully functioning assembly and executive without delay,” he added.
The Times newspaper reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government could legislate to ditch checks on goods and tell businesses in Northern Ireland to disregard EU rules…reports Asian Lite News
Britain has rejected the European Union’s proposals to resolve a standoff over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, saying it would not shy away from taking direct action in the latest escalation between the two sides.
Striking a deal that preserved peace in Northern Ireland and protected the EU’s single market without imposing a hard land border between the British province and EU member state Ireland, or a border within the UK, was always the biggest challenge for London as it embarked on its exit from the bloc.
It agreed on a protocol which instead created a customs border in the sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but now says the required bureaucracy is intolerable.
London’s Conservative government has been threatening to rip up the protocol for months, raising the risk of a trade war with Europe at a time of soaring inflation and ringing alarm bells across Europe and in Washington.
Brussels offered to ease customs checks in October last year, but British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Wednesday said this failed to address the core problem, “and in some cases would take us backward”.
“Prices have risen, trade is being badly disrupted, and the people of Northern Ireland are subject to different laws and taxes than those over the Irish Sea, which has left them without a (governing) executive and poses a threat to peace and stability,” she said in a statement.
Truss said the government wanted a negotiated solution, but added we “will not shy away from taking action to stabilise the situation in Northern Ireland if solutions cannot be found”.
The Times newspaper reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government could legislate to ditch checks on goods and tell businesses in Northern Ireland to disregard EU rules.
The move to announce domestic legislation which would effectively disapply the protocol could come on Tuesday, a Conservative source said.
But not everyone in British governing circles will back such an approach, which could also take months to be passed by the lower and upper houses of parliament.
Simon Hoare, a Conservative lawmaker who chairs parliament’s Northern Ireland select committee, said, “No honourable country should act unilaterally within an agreement.”
Were the House of Lords to object to the legislation, the government could try to resort to the Parliament Acts, a rarely used device that solves disagreement between the lower and upper houses, to force it through.
Ireland, Germany and the EU leadership have urged the UK not to take matters into its own hands.
— Europe News Briefly (@EuropeNews_b) May 11, 2022
But elections in Northern Ireland last week added impetus and the UK says nothing must threaten a 1998 peace deal which largely ended decades of sectarian violence between Irish nationalists and unionists.
Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, which accepts the protocol given its goal of Irish unification, emerged as the largest party in the vote, while the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which fears losing ties with London, fell to second.
The DUP has now refused to form a new power-sharing administration unless the trading rules are overhauled.
The “carrot and stick” approach taken by Truss is intended to intensify the pace of the talks, which both sides want to wrap up, if possible, within weeks and ahead of Northern Ireland assembly elections on May 5….reports Asian Lite News
Foreign secretary Liz Truss is to make new proposals to break the deadlock over post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland on Friday, saying that resolving the row with the EU was “an absolute priority”.
Truss’s allies said both sides wanted to bridge their differences, although Boris Johnson, the prime minister, warned this week that Britain could still unilaterally suspend parts of the so-called Northern Ireland protocol if no deal was reached.
British ministers have been drawing up fresh contingency plans in recent weeks in the event that Johnson activates the Article 16 override mechanism, possibly plunging the UK into a trade war with the EU.
The “carrot and stick” approach taken by Truss is intended to intensify the pace of the talks, which both sides want to wrap up, if possible, within weeks and ahead of Northern Ireland assembly elections on May 5.
Speaking ahead of talks in London with European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic, Truss said: “We have a shared responsibility with the EU to work towards solutions as quickly as possible that deliver for the people of Northern Ireland.”
Truss, who will host the talks at Lancaster House, wants to reset relations with the EU. Recently returned from Moscow, the foreign secretary has told colleagues she wants Europe to unite over the crisis in Ukraine, not descend into a trade dispute over Northern Ireland.
While Johnson would win some cheers from Conservative Eurosceptics if he suspended parts of the NI protocol — part of the UK’s Brexit treaty — it would open up a range of unpredictable outcomes.
Renewed “no deal” contingency planning by ministers, which stepped up in January, has looked at issues such as possible disruption of medical supplies in the event of an EU trade war, along with much broader economic disruption.
Johnson, who is trying to stabilise his political situation after weeks of chaos, may also recoil from the idea of a trade dispute that could create turmoil at the ports and possible shortages of some products.
Officials on both sides cautioned against expecting a breakthrough at Friday’s talks, but said there was a joint determination to create a positive atmosphere ahead of a February 21 meeting of the Joint Committee that manages the post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland.
Under the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol, all goods going from Great Britain to the region must follow EU customs and health rules leading to the creation of an “Irish Sea border” that the UK government has declared unsustainable.
A source with knowledge of the UK’s latest offer to the EU said that the ideas expanded upon the concept of “red and green channels”, in which goods that were clearly destined to remain inside Northern Ireland, would be exempted from border bureaucracy.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson with his UK’s chief negotiator David Frost with Ursula von Der Leyen and Michel Barnier after their dinner at the European Commission in Brussels to continue with Brexit talks. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
One British official confirmed that both sides were putting new ideas on the table: “We are trying to be constructive and by definition in negotiations both sides are trying to move towards each other.”
Despite the warmer tone from Truss, two senior Whitehall figures confirmed that the government had been actively “ramping up” contingency planning for the use of Article 16.
In October 2021, when Lord David Frost was still the UK Brexit minister, the British government stepped back from the brink of triggering the safeguards mechanism after Brussels warned that it would lead to the suspension of the wider EU-UK trade agreement.
Maros Sefcovic, Vice-president of the European Commission and co-chair of the EU-UK Joint Committee and Partnership Council.
The European Commission’s proposals still need to be sent to the European Parliament and the Council for examination and endorsement, reports Asian Lite News
The European Commission put forward proposals to ensure timely supply of medicines to Northern Ireland (NI) from the rest of the UK, announced officials.
“The Commission is today proposing a bespoke arrangement for the supply of medicines to Northern Ireland. It means that everyone in Northern Ireland will have access to the same medicines at the same time as elsewhere in the UK, while ensuring that the integrity of the EU Single Market is protected,” said Maros Sefcovic, Vice-president of the European Commission and co-chair of the EU-UK Joint Committee and Partnership Council.
Not only generic medicines, such as paracetamol, but also life-saving medicines such as cancer treatment, are included, Xinhua news agency quoted Sefcovic as saying at a press conference.
In line with the proposals, if a new medicine has been authorised in the UK, but not yet in the EU, it will be temporarily supplied to patients in Northern Ireland pending authorisation in the EU, European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides told the same press conference.
Those temporary authorizations should be time-limited and end as soon as the Commission has granted the authorisation to market the medicine, she added.
The European Commission’s proposals still need to be sent to the European Parliament and the Council for examination and endorsement.
The UK’s departure from the EU, also called Brexit, led to a complicated situation on the Island of Ireland. To avoid a hard border on the island, the UK’s Northern Ireland was integrated into the EU Single Market, under the Protocol of Ireland/Northern Ireland.
Goods leaving Great Britain to enter Northern Ireland, including medicine, are subjected to the EU Single Market’s custom duties and inspections, creating delays and effectively cutting out supplies in Northern Ireland.
David Frost meets with European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic in Brussels
David Frost said he and Maros Sefcovic will talk twice to steer the process, in the hope of making worthwhile progress towards agreed solutions before Christmas, reports Asian Lite News
British Brexit Minister David Frost said that the UK and the European Union (EU) have made limited progress on the post-Brexit supply of medicines to Northern Ireland.
Frost had a video call with European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic on Friday to wrap up this week’s talks about the Northern Ireland Protocol, reports Xinhua news agency.
“We have made further limited progress on medicines but we have not reached agreement,” Frost tweeted after the meeting.
“I underlined the need for movement on all the difficult issues created by the (Northern Ireland) Protocol, including customs, agrifood rules, subsidy policy, VAT/excise, & governance including the Court of Justice,” he added.
He confirmed intensive talks will continue in the coming week.
Frost said he and Sefcovic will talk twice to steer the process, in the hope of making worthwhile progress towards agreed solutions before Christmas.
As part of the Brexit deal, the Northern Ireland Protocol stipulates that Northern Ireland remains in the EU single market and customs union to avoid a hard border between the region and the Republic of Ireland.
However, this leads to a new “regulatory” border between Britain and Northern Ireland.
Britain and the EU view changing the protocol as a long-term solution to post-Brexit trade disruption in Northern Ireland.
Britain outlined its proposals in a government paper in July, which observers interpreted as an intention to renegotiate the protocol.
In response, the EU published its own package to facilitate the movement of goods from Britain to Northern Ireland, including cutting customs formalities, simplified certification, and an 80 per cent reduction of checks on retail goods for Northern Ireland’s consumers.
It said it would guarantee an uninterrupted supply of medicine to the people of Northern Ireland, by changing EU rules.
