Morning View: More than soft words needed from von der Leyen and the EU

The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is currently in Egypt at the COP27 climate change summit.

Alongside other world leaders, he will address issues that were already ferociously complex, but have been complicated by rising living costs that leave even leading economies little room for manoeuvre.

These were among the matters that Sunak discussed yesterday with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, when they met at the conference.

The two leaders also addressed an issue that continues to sour relationships between the EU and the UK, as well as creating political instability at Stormont: the NI Protocol.

As you would expect from a meeting like this, they agreed on a positive form of words and committed to “working together to agree a resolution” on the problems with the Irish Sea border.

In Northern Ireland, though, we’ve heard this kind of rhetoric before and there are few indicators that a breakthrough is close.

Britain and the EU have little choice but to act as allies, because we are close neighbours that share many of the same challenges.

For Northern Ireland and the UK more widely, the protocol is a massive problem, but its importance is dwarfed internationally by the war in Ukraine and issues around energy, climate and the economy that will be explored at COP 27.

It is all the more frustrating, then, that the EU cannot be more pragmatic and reasonable over Northern Ireland.

Its insistence that we must remain separated politically and economically from the rest of the UK is not in keeping with our relationship as friends and partners.

The fine words from Mr Sunak and Ms von der Leyen are all very well, but it’s past time that we saw some results on the protocol.