Debate: Implementation report on the Agreement on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU - The Windsor Framework
Date: TUESDAY, 14 MARCH 2023
Speaker: Pedro Silva Pereira
Country: Bulgaria
Language: EN

As rapporteur for the implementation of the Brexit agreement, I am glad to say that, fortunately, we are here not only to assess what happened in the last three years, where the story to tell is not always pleasant, but also to look into the future of the EU-UK relations in light of the recently announced Windsor framework, a new joint understanding about the terms for a more flexible but also more effective implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. This development is of utmost importance. The UK’s continuous breach of its agreed legal commitments under the protocol was by far the most serious issue in the implementation of the withdrawal agreement. The lack of customs checks in the Irish Sea and the insufficient sharing of customs data with the EU obviously endangered the integrity of the EU single market. It’s worth recalling that the Northern Ireland Protocol was the agreed solution to prevent a physical border on the island of Ireland so that the Good Friday Agreement is fully safeguarded while protecting the integrity of the EU single market. A dialogue on a flexible but effective implementation of the protocol, as many times suggested by the European Commission, was always the right thing to do, not unilateral actions. Besides the new customs data sharing arrangements, the key element of the Windsor framework is a distinction between a green lane in the Irish Sea with no border controls for goods entering Northern Ireland for final consumption there in Northern Ireland and the red lane with EU customs and sanitary and phytosanitary procedures for those goods entering Northern Ireland but at risk of entering the EU single market. Together with the so-called ‘Stormont break’, allowing for Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to stop in exceptional circumstances future regulatory divergences introduced by the EU. This joint understanding gives us reasons to believe that an important turn of a page can happen in the EU-UK relations. Moreover, we hope to see power-sharing returning to Northern Ireland so that we can all properly celebrate the 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement. Therefore, as rapporteur for the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement, I propose to the European Parliament that we warmly welcome the announced Windsor framework and, to that effect, I table a few amendments updating the report in respect of this important development. Furthermore, I would like to warmly congratulate Vice President Maroš Šefčovič and all his team for this remarkable political achievement. One last word on citizens’ rights, a top priority for this Parliament. We welcome the UK establishment of the EU settlement scheme, under which 7 million European citizens have asked for the recognition of their residence rights. 55% of those got the permanent settled status. But however, we note that 39% of the applicants – about 2.7 million – only got the so-called ‘pre-settled status’. So we will monitor the situation to ensure that they get the permanent status as soon as they fulfil the legal requirements. And, finally, we still ask the British Government to provide a document serving as physical proof of residence rights so people don’t have to face practical difficulties in their daily life. So improvements are still needed for sure, but I believe that hope should be the right tone for today’s debate.