The commitment by the EU and UK to work towards a deal to remove most checks on agri-food products arriving into Northern Ireland from Britain has been hailed as “hugely significant” and “a good day” for the North.
The agreement represents potentially the most significant easement of post-Brexit trading rules for Northern Ireland since the UK left the European Union in 2020.
Speaking following the announcement by British prime minister Keir Starmer and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Monday, Tánaiste Simon Harris said it was “a very positive day” for EU-UK relations and “a good day for Northern Ireland”.
“It was very important that the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland be taken into account, and that has been done,” he said.
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Mr Harris said that a broad-based agreement on sanitary and phytosantiary (SPS) – agrifood safety and animal and plant checks – would bring “significant benefits” for Northern Ireland business and consumers, and for the efficient operation of the Windsor Framework.
The commitment regarding SPS goods was part of a wide-ranging agreement that includes increased co-operation in areas such as food, fishing, defence and passport checks.
Business organisations in the North have welcomed the move.
Stuart Anderson, director of public affairs at the NI Chamber, described it as “hugely significant”, while Prof Ursula Lavery, chairwoman of the Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association, said it was a “step to potentially easing the administrative burden on businesses” and offsetting some of the “significant” costs firms had experienced recently.
The agreement was supported by Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party.
Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin said: “Anything that protects the all-island economy, anything that maximises our access to both markets in terms of trade, anything that removes barriers for trade, then that’s something we would obviously very much welcome.”
DUP leader Gavin Robinson said his party would take time to scrutinise the detail and would “make our judgment solely through the prism of how it affects Northern Ireland and our place within the United Kingdom.
“An SPS agreement may help ease the flow of trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but it will not be a silver bullet to the host of problems created by the application of EU law specifically in Northern Ireland only.”
According to the text of the agreement on a “renewed agenda” for EU-UK co-operation, London and Brussels have committed to “work towards establishing a common sanitary and phytosanitary agreement” which would result in dynamic alignment on SPS products between the EU and UK.
“This would result in the vast majority of movements of animals, animal products, plants and plant products between Great Britain and the European Union being undertaken without the certificates or controls that are currently required by the rules,” the agreement states.
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This would also apply to Northern Ireland through the “interplay of the Windsor Framework and the SPS Agreement, so long as the SPS Agreement is fully implemented” and will “provide for Northern Ireland maintaining its privileged unique dual access to both the European Union Single Market and the United Kingdom internal market”, it said.
It is not clear how long it will take to reach this agreement, but it will require detailed negotiation of the legal text and an implementation process, and could take some time.
The Windsor Framework, which governs post-Brexit trade in Northern Ireland, remains in place, and its rules on SPS goods will continue to operate in the meantime.
The North will continue to apply EU customs rules, with customs declarations still required for goods shipped from Britain to Northern Ireland.
The need for checks on agri-food products moving between Britain and Northern Ireland, which remains inside the EU single market for goods, has been one of the most economically arduous and politically contentious consequences of Brexit for the North.
Unionists were opposed to the creation of an effective Border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, while economically, physical checks and additional red tape increased costs for businesses and made it harder to import some products.
NI Chamber chief executive Suzanne Wylie said it was “a step in the right direction”.
She said the agreement “will not solve all the challenges our members face” and said the chamber “would like to see greater aspiration to tackle regulatory divergence more broadly, and to reduce the customs burden under the Windsor Framework”.
Confederation of British Industry chief executive Rain Newton-Smith said: “As both sides look to iron out the details in the coming months, easing trade barriers for Northern Irish firms and supporting island of Ireland supply chains must remain a priority.”
Alliance leader Naomi Long said the agreement “seems to be a first, positive step” in a closer relationship between the UK and EU.
“However, further work is clearly required to address issues around customs and veterinary medicines,” she said.
SDLP leader Claire Hanna said the deal included “a number of important initiatives ... that will make things easier for businesses here and for many of our citizens when travelling abroad.”
Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister said the “surrender of UK fishing waters for another 12 years to the EU is the most vivid illustration of the [UK] government’s agenda to sabotage Brexit. The deal copper-fastens NI as EU territory.”
He added that despite the “spin of diminishing the Irish Sea border”, several points of divergence between the UK and Northern Ireland remained.
