27 January 2020

The Guardian: Barnier rejects Johnson's claims over Irish Sea trade checks

The EU has rejected Boris Johnson’s claims that there will be no checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland after Brexit, with Michel Barnier warning such checks are not dispensable.

Days after the prime minister said there would “emphatically” be no checks on trade across the Irish Sea, the EU’s chief negotiator told an audience in Belfast that the UK had agreed to them as part of a “creative and flexible” solution to the Irish border question.

There was no provision for ignoring them in the legal test of the withdrawal agreement, Barnier said in a speech at Queen’s University. “In agreeing the [Northern Ireland] protocol, the UK has agreed to a system of reinforced checks and controls for goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain.”

“The text is very precise. I always tell the truth,” Barnier said in response to questions from the media on whether checks could be lifted. When asked how he felt about Johnson’s repeated claims there would be no checks, he replied: “I know what is written in this text.”

In his speech, he said: “I understand the fears of negative economic fallout expressed by some about these checks, but Brexit unfortunately has consequences that we must manage.”

He said it was the UK’s decision to quit the single market and customs union, and that “makes checks indispensable”.

His comments directly contradict the prime minister’s repeated claims over the last three months that there would be no checks on goods in either direction across the Irish Sea. [...]

Full article on The Guardian

Related article on The Guardian: Revealed: complex post-Brexit checks for Northern Irish traders

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