Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Simon Coveney said he is confident a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol can be reached following the UK’s agreement to allow the EU access to real-time data on goods moving from Britain into the North.
London’s previous refusal to allow EU officials access to the data, viewed by Brussels as a fundamental condition for giving Northern Ireland access to the single market, had been a bone of contention between both sides for several months.
“We now have, it seems, an agreement in principle at least on how to share data in terms of trade activity between GB and Northern Ireland,” Mr Coveney said at an event to launch Enterprise Ireland’s latest annual report.
“I think that can be the basis for more flexibility and more co-operation in terms of how we manage the movement of goods, how we distinguish between goods that are staying in Northern Ireland in terms of purchase and consumption and goods that are moving on to other parts of the EU single market,” he said.
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“The ability to get an agreement has for quite some time relied on trust and once there is an agreement on how to share data appropriately in the way that the British government can support and the EU feels they can also facilitate ... that is an important step forward,” Mr Coveney said.
While both sides want a new agreement in place by the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement (April 10th), Mr Coveney described the timeline as “tight”, particularly with other issues relating to customs, animal and food checks, and the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) still to be ironed out.
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“The most important thing is we get this thing right. Northern Ireland ... businesses there, people there, political parties there need this issue settled. It’s been far too corrosive in the context of relationships both on this island and between these islands for the last number of years,” he said.
Mr Coveney, who until recently was minister for foreign affairs, has been central to the EU’s Brexit negotiations.
He said the change in leadership in the UK that saw Rishi Sunak replace Liz Truss as prime minister late last year had prompted a change in the UK’s approach to negotiations and “that’s very welcome”.
“I think the EU has responded to that and I think we’re now seeing a serious and honest engagement from both sides,” the Minister said.
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The fact that “we’re not hearing a lot of what’s being discussed is a good thing, it means the two negotiating teams trust each other in terms of the sensitive issues they’re trying to manage their way through,” Mr Coveney said.
“While a lot of people hoped we could have made a deal before the end of the year that simply wasn’t possible because of the detail of some of the discussions that were under way,” he said.
