The Minister for Brexit of the Government of the United Kingdom, David Frost , has admitted this Sunday, in a letter published in the newspaper ‘Financial Times’, that from the British Executive “they underestimated the effect of the protocol on the movements of goods to Ireland from North”. He has also warned that the situation in the region after the break with Europe is “unsustainable.”
The person in charge of monitoring Brexit explains that “some suppliers in the UK do not ship their products for the time it takes to fill out the necessary paperwork.” And it details how some “medical supplies” have been cut and that “there are fewer options on the banners of supermarkets.” In this regard, he has warned that “when the grace period ends in October, supermarkets will face real and serious problems.”
Frost says in his writing that when they agreed to “this new protocol in 2019, we did it to remove the old disastrous endorsement and allow Brexit to happen .” Although, he ends up admitting that after enforcing European law in Northern Ireland, “the balance we hoped for has not been found.”
In the article, Frost assures that the United Kingdom is applying the Northern Irish protocol, but presents Brussels with possibilities to improve it. In turn, he appeals in his writing to the “common sense” of the European Union in order to avoid new altercations in Northern Ireland after the meeting he will hold “this week” with the vice president of the European Commission, Maros Sefcovic . A meeting, which he has described as “historic”, and in which the Briton hopes to “resolve the current difficulties as friendly trading partners and equal sovereigns.”
“The EU needs a new script to deal with its neighbors , one that contemplates pragmatic solutions between friends, not the imposition of rules and legal purism from one party to the other,” said Frost in the article published this Sunday in the which lists the problems caused by the Brexit agreement in Northern Ireland.
“Time is starting to run out”, according to Frost, who considers the situation “absolutely unsustainable” if the EU is not more flexible on the application of the protocol. “We need progress to be made soon,” he added.
In response, the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clement Beaune , has stated that the Northern Ireland Protocol to the agreement is not the problem, but “a solution to a problem that we have not created.” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has also rejected that the EU has been too rigid.
