Debate: The UK government’s unilateral introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and respect for international law
Date: WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2022
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

This is what we are working towards and this is why I so much appreciate not only the unity among the Member States, but also the strong support from the European Parliament because we mean well: we want to solve the problem. We are bringing constructive solutions to the table. And I agree with all of you – Mr McAllister, Mr Silva Pereira, Mr Pedro Marques and many others – who said that this is definitely a time for showing unity among the countries who share the same values. We have one huge challenge to the east of our borders, and it is definitely not the time to breach international law.  On top of that, this House is very much rooted in democracy, in democratic values. It is a house of European democracy. So therefore, I also fully understand the clear expressions of the Members of the European Parliament who sometimes cannot understand, how come, when you have the majority of the Members of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland supporting the Protocol, how come, when you have a majority of people in all opinion polls supporting the solutions we are bringing to the table, how come, when you have strong business support for dual market access, they are still struggling to get this done? I fully share the views of Mr Bourgeois, of Ms Barley and of others that the consequences of Brexit are palpable. But in the case of how we wanted to conclude it and find the best way forward through the protocol, Brexit in this case is clearly not complete. It is not done yet, and to use the London expression, the bill which we are discussing today, will not fix the Protocol; it will nix the Protocol, and it would reopen all the difficult discussions to which we know there is no other answer but the answer which we expressed in the protocol, in the Withdrawal Agreement and in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.  On top of that, what is sometimes extremely sad, it seems that we share the same goals. If you are talking about a green line or an express line, what we want to achieve is to ease east-west trade as much as possible. We know that checking everything is not possible. But at the same time, we also know that checking nothing or the complete elimination of checks would simply open unguarded doors to the single market and would infringe upon the integrity of the single market, so that’s excluded. But to have a bare minimum of checks where, with the help of our UK partners, by accessing finally the IT systems, by doing checks on risk-based analysis, the bare minimum of checks, that would work, and we are ready to discuss it and this is the content of our protocol.  We offered also different easements for businesspeople on both sides of the border, through the expanded ‘trusted trader’ schemes.  All these proposals are on the table and I definitely would like to reassure the Members that we are ready to discuss them, but we want to have genuine negotiations that would be based on looking for a joint solution, which would avoid this unilateralism and which would not be some kind of window dressing where we are talking because we have to talk, bit the result is already given and it’s the bill because this is how the bill is drafted.  Therefore, I would like to reassure you that our door remains open. We hope that we will have these genuine negotiations, genuine talks, because this is what I believe that people in the EU, in Northern Ireland, in UK and in Ireland are expecting of us. The last two things I would mention – because many of you appreciate it, there was a lot of creativity brought into our proposals. Indeed, we provided and suggested a lot of different technical solutions, but technical solutions will not do the trick if there is no political will on the UK side to engage and to look for a joint solution. So this is what we need. We have creativity, we need political will in London to actually have genuine talks, to restart and to work on joint practical solutions. If this would not be the case and if the bill, as drafted, would be adopted, of course, in that case, we would be forced to use the measures at our disposal, including the measures which are included in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.  So I hope that we would avoid that situation and we will find a way to restart talks, to be constructive, and to find a joint solution which would be good for Northern Ireland, for the UK, for Ireland and for the European Union. Once again, thank you very much for this debate, for the opportunity to address you and for your unwavering support, which is so precious in these difficult days. Thank you very much.