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BCN-05

BRITAIN-NIRELAND-POLITICS-EU-BREXIT-TRADE-PARLIAMENT

LONDON, June 27, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - A UK government bill proposing an overhaul
to a post-Brexit deal in Northern Ireland returns to parliament on Monday,
despite EU warnings it is illegal and could spark a trade war.

Brussels threatened legal action after the UK government earlier this month
introduced the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill to unilaterally change trading
terms for the British province.

A day before it gets its second reading in parliament -- the first
opportunity for lawmakers to debate a proposal -- the EU's ambassador again
warned London of reprisals if it is passed.

"We think it is both illegal and unrealistic. It is illegal because it's a
breach of international law, a breach of EU law and UK law," Joao Vale de
Almeida told Sky News on Sunday.

"We are committed to find the practical solutions on implementation, but we
cannot start talking if the baseline is to say everything we have agreed
before is to be put aside," he added.

The protocol -- signed separately from the wider trade and cooperation
agreement -- requires checks on goods arriving into Northern Ireland from
England, Scotland and Wales, in order to track products that could be
potentially headed to the EU via the Republic of Ireland.

This creates a customs border down the Irish Sea, keeping Northern Ireland in
the EU's customs orbit so as to avoid a politically sensitive hard border
between it and EU member Ireland.

But pro-British parties in Northern Ireland say it is driving a wedge between
London and Belfast and are refusing to join in a power-sharing government in
the province until the protocol is changed.

- EU anger -

Unionist parties and the UK government argue the protocol is threatening the
1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of violence over British
rule in Northern Ireland.

They want checks to be removed on goods and animal and plant products
travelling from Great Britain.

"The problem (with) the protocol is the way the EU want to see it
implemented," the UK's Northern Ireland minister Brandon Lewis told Sky News
on Sunday.

"What we are doing is fixing the problems within the protocol, about how it's
being implemented, so that businesses can prosper again.

"I want to see the re-establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the
executive -- the protocol is getting in the way of that and that's why it's
breaching the Belfast Good Friday Agreement," he added.

"We want to do this by agreement with the EU but to do that, they need to
show some flexibility."

Plans to unilaterally override parts of the protocol have provoked anger in
European capitals, particularly Dublin, and have led to the EU threatening an
all-out trade war if implemented.

"Unilateral action is damaging to mutual trust," European Commission Vice
President Maros Sefcovic told reporters in Brussels when the UK introduced
the legislation.

Sefcovic said Brussels would now consider reopening a suspended "infringement
procedure" against Britain, as well as opening fresh cases.

This would be to "protect the EU single market from risks that the violation
of the protocol creates for the EU businesses and for the health and safety
of EU citizens", he added.

After Monday's debate, the bill still has several hurdles to clear in both
the House of Commons and upper House of Lords before it becomes law, and
faces legal challenges.