Priority must be avoid a hard Brexit - Post-Brexit border solutions
Tánaiste Simon Coveney has said the Government will be flexible on solutions to issues surrounding the post-Brexit border if the British government brings new thinking that is more political than technological.
That may already be happening. According to a report by RTÉ, the British government is exploring the prospect of
the United Kingdom as a whole remaining aligned to the EU Customs Union for several years after Brexit.
The plan being considered by prime minister Theresa May and her government would be for a strict interpretation of the agreement reached between the EU and UK in December on the Irish border issue. Section 49 of that agreement states that in the absence of any other way of avoiding a hard border, the UK would “maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and customs union which support north-south co-operation, the all-island economy, and the Good Friday Agreement”.
That has always been interpreted as being confined to Northern Ireland, something which the DUP has repeatedly said it will not countenance.
Confining full alignment to Northern Ireland would infuriate the party propping up the May administration and likely lead to her demise — but if the whole of the UK was included, the DUP would have few grounds to complain.
The so-called third option would mean no customs checks on the Irish Sea, or on the Irish border.
The prime minister is between a rock and a hard place.
Die-hard Brexiteers within her own government oppose vigorously her customs partnership model while the EU — and Ireland in particular — refuses to countenance a technological solution to border control.
If this is a serious proposal, it must be considered seriously by the Irish Government and the EU. It is essential for the remaining member states that the focus remains on limiting the effects of Brexit. However, the signs are that the opposite is happening and that the focus is shifting towards further enlargement of an already disjointed bloc.
The Taoiseach and the Minister of State for European Affairs, Helen McEntee, are in Bulgaria to attend the EU Western Balkans Summit today in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. In advance of the meeting, Ms McEntee declared the enlargement of the EU to the Western Balkans to be a priority for Ireland.
“Ireland supports the enlargement of the EU, with countries who share the values of the European Union and it is important to work with countries to reach those goals,” she said.
Really, minister? Enlargement is not, and must not be considered to be, a priority for Ireland or the EU as a whole. The priority must continue to be finding a workable arrangement with the UK after Brexit.
It is, of course, important that EU democracies, mindful of the devastating regional wars of the 1990s, encourage and aid economic progress in the region but it must not come at the expense of a hard Brexit.
